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Comment Re:FOSS names (Score 1) 270

So you think fsck is something besides a descriptive abbreviation for File System Check?

Dennis Ritchie thought so too:

Dennis Ritchie: “So fsck was originally called something else”
Question: “What was it called?”
Dennis Ritchie: "Well, the second letter was different"
~ Q&A at Usenix

I don't know if he was a pre-teen when he wrote it, but it's a bad name anyway because it doesn't suggest anything to do with the purpose of the tool.

Submission + - NHS moves to NoSQL running on an open-source stack (theregister.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: The NHS has ripped the Oracle backbone from a national patient database system and inserted NoSQL running on an open-source stack.

Spine2 has gone live following successful redevelopment including redeployment on new, x86 hardware. The project to replace Spine1 had been running for three years with Spine2 now undergoing a 45-day monitoring period.

Comment Re:Well, you have mine. (Score 1) 727

Sometimes if I leave k3b (DVD burning software installed by default) open for to long, it causes KDE to go full-on rahtard, and has been known to require a reboot.

You may find you can just restart X. press CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE

Every time I upgrade to the latest version of slackware, I'm able to simply copy data and I'm right back in business. This matter of having the same data for 10+ years is extremely important to so many people.

This is a huge advantage of *nix from a sysadmins PoV; the fact that there is an enforced directory convention, with config data all in /etc, apps in /usr etc. windows has something similar in theory - but it's not enforced and few apps follow it.

Submission + - Facebook experimenting with Blu-ray as a storage medium (cnn.com)

s122604 writes: There aren't too many people collecting Blu-ray discs these days. But while the technology is fast becoming obsolete for movie viewers, Facebook sees it as a promising new means for handling data storage.

Comment Re:Something like this already exists... (Score 1) 184

these "freedom activists" ... the actual perpetrator.

If someone is active in supporting freedom then they are a freedom activist - no scare quotes needed. Which concept are you implying is dubious: freedom or being an activist? OTOH people can be identified and punished for saying or doing things online that have no victims apart from political ideologies - so they are 'perpetrators' not perpetrators.

It's one thing to stand up and say "I am Spartacus", it's quite another to point at someone else and say "he is Spartacus".

I don't quite get this, if you explicitly allow some dissident (called 'Spartacus', say) to use your network and identify as yourself, how isn't that you yourself saying 'I am Spartacus'?

Comment Open your Wifi and your mind will follow (Score 1, Interesting) 184

All the people saying "don't open your router because then the gov't will hold you responsible for things other people use it for" are missing the point. This is exactly why this is a freedom of speech issue and why the EFF is involved in the first place.
The gov't would like every act online to be traceable to an individual who can then be held responsible for it.
Freedom of speech means freedom from punishment because of your speech. The Soviets used to have a joke "everybody in Russia is free to say what they like - they're just not free to stay out of prison afterwards."
The only way to guarantee FoS is anonymity. The gov't can't punish you if they can't find you. Which is why dictatorships hate online anonymity.
Even if it was true that you could be held responsible for things others do using your router, you'd still have a duty to let them do it.
IANAL but AFAIK there is no legal basis in either the UK or US to punish someone for enabling someone else to commit a crime, unless it was part of a deliberate conspiracy, or 'common purpose'. So, (if its true at all that this is 'dangerous') the authorities are trying to illegally blackmail people into supporting their unconstitutional attempt to destroy anonymous Internet access.
Submitting to this blackmail is treason. Keep your country free, Keep your WiFi free.

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