Really tired of hearing the same "but it's their choice" rhetoric about women in tech. The fact is, women's brains aren't more or less "wired" for anything, and most preferences are learned through socialising. I'm sure plenty love tech, programming, gaming and everything, but simply can't stand the "community", where misogynistic bullshit is unfortunately the norm rather than the exception. And I'm not just talking about outright exclusion, but harrassement, sexist joking around, stereotyping, etc. But don't take it from me, ask any group of women already involved in open-source about the challenges they face daily. In fact, that's just what most everyone in tech fails to do : listen to them and take them seriously (including the criticism).

Several other new applications have also been added to GNOME including Music, Photos, Notes and Maps.

Is it just me, or is GNOME picking a completely new default multimedia applications every other release or so? Why can't they run with something for a few years, for a change?

Use policyd-weight. It checks for DNS records and other stuff, and assigns a score to each test. I've been using it for a while and find it's a good compromise.

Check out Monkeysphere, it does just that. It even has a Firefox plugin.

"The Monkeysphere project's goal is to extend OpenPGP's web of trust to new areas of the Internet to help us securely identify servers we connect to, as well as each other while we work online. The suite of Monkeysphere utilities provides a framework to transparently leverage the web of trust for authentication of TLS/SSL communications through the normal use of tools you are familiar with, such as your web browser0 or secure shell." See: http://web.monkeysphere.info/

Rent Is Too Damn High!

European air traffic systems run on Windows XP with McAfee.

AT the college where I work, most computer labs that were deployed a few years ago were locked down very tight. Basically all the students could do is use an approved set of programs, and Internet was blocked off. During that time, the computers were vandalised regularly and on a large scale. Students would unplug them for fun, smash the keyboard and scribble on the screen. And yes, we're talking about yound adults. Magically, when the restrictions were eased, and unfiltered Internet access was allowed, vandalism was reduced dramatically. Instead of wasting their time vandalising the school's equipment, the waste it on Hotmail or Facebook. Moral of the story, the best way to have students take care of computer equipment is to make them feel as if they own it... With that said, I still agree that giving every kid a laptop at school is a baaaaad idea. Any sane teacher would strongly oppose this plan...