Recent Comments

Now we can't even get a rocket into space. Perhaps we can pay Russia to do it for us?

Right - because they're batting 1000.

Seriously - space flight is going private; there are going to be failures. There are reasons folks compare things to 'rocket science.'

Uh - claimer, I guess: I used to work in aerospace (nearly 30 years ago), with engineers on the space shuttle main engines.

Now we can't even get a rocket into space. Perhaps we can pay Russia to do it for us?

* Classical
* Rock
* Whatever my cube mate has on today
* Silence
* Chanting
* I am deaf YIC

Could also do "Best computer game ever".

"I know where you keep your porn"

Eh, HTTPS everwhere won't help that much. Sure anyone sniffing traffice between you and various websites can't identify you any more. But the adnetworks or anyone else that issues request from various sites ( JS, images, whatever) can tell that you visited pages X, Y, & Z even if they were browsed in different browsers and each connection was over HTTPS.

Edit in light of comments below:

Ah, yeah if Verision is modifying the http requests to add a header, https would prevent that. My brain was on a leave of absense, somehow thinking Verision was magically altering the headers in the browser as they were being created.

Yes. Using HTTPS will prevent Verizon from injecting foreign content into your traffic. A.K.A. "Man in the middle" attacks.

But there's potentially less work in replacing an exchange than in replacing cabling.

Analogy: JavaScript. It was never intended for what it's used for today, and it was pretty bad even for its humble original goals, but we're stuck with it forever. The best we can hope for it to evolve it well.

Similarly, neither the English language nor QWERTY are efficient choices, but here we are. They'll continue to be used tomorrow, because they're so widespread today.

Does https help? The content is encrypted, true, but does this protocol prevent the provider from putting an envelope around it so the receiver still can identify the sender? I never had an interest how https works on a low level. Perhaps I should look into it.

Yet another reason to use HTTPS everywhere.

"Late Friday, Hoffman-Andrews said he was looking into anecdotal reports that AT&T was using a similar type of identifier."

AT&T is my cell service provider and when I loaded the test site on my phone, it returned a nice, long UID. It did conclude with "type=Dynamic". Can anyone with more knowledge weigh in on whether or not "type=Dynamic" means this is less likely to be a Verizonesque permacookie?

I am actually a long term Window Maker user who defected to XFCE for sometime because some of its desktopyness made life a little bit easier in a corporate environment.

I am back on Window Maker for a few months now having gotten tired of my computer being continuously busy doing stuff I never really asked it to do. The relief is tangible. Even though I set up my XFCE environment to be NextSteppy, using a dock and such, it is a million little things which Window Maker does perfectly and XFCE doesn't even do at all... but possibly the biggest thing, my environment does not change beyond all recognition with every upgrade, features do not disappear from beneath my finger tips while I try to use them... the actual broader implications and meanings of the word stability become apparent and real productivity follows.

Yes, broadcasters have to renew them all the time.

Here's their website to renew licenses:

http://wireless.fcc.gov/uls/index.htm?job=home

TV broadcast licenses are 8 years.

Narrow-band 2-way business radio licenses are 10 years.

I don't know the specific term length or renewal fees for the incentive auction spectrum, and just the thought of looking through all those books full of legalese to find out already makes me feel nauseous.

The auction price just gets them the initial license. The FCC generally recognizes users of spectrum as having a right to keep using it, as long as they're paying their fees, using it as efficiently as possible, and following whatever other restrictions and requirements have been set-out by the FCC or Congress.

TV broadcasters aren't going to spend millions building their broadcasting infrastructure, if they might just suddenly lose their license. Similarly, wireless phone companies aren't going to spend billions building out their cell towers, if they might suddenly be rendered unusable.

I would go the Segway option if not for the cost

Sorry, I don't care what you think you can do with copper. From unbonded grounds, to lighting, to interference..It's absolutely, unquestionably inferior to fiber.

Anyone have a segway or know someone who actually bought one? Not me, mind you, just wondering. Always thought those things look so silly.

I miss SG1 :-(

Wowohwowohwow want need must have rowr!

Shouldn't spectrum licences expire?

That ratpoison article was friggin' hilarious. I have no ideas about the merits of the desktop vs other Linux desktops, but the article? I cackled. Favorite line:

That cheat-sheet is about as helpful as a donkey with a semi-automatic rifle. Sure, it looks cool in a picture... but you don't want it on your desk.

No option for scooters? We just had this discussion:

https://pipedot.org/comment/2TEQ

Every time I walk somewhere, it always astonishes me just how convenient cars are. Sure, maybe walking you can take a more direct route, ignore traffic signs, don't need to park, etc., but it's still just so ridiculously slow as to never be convenient. Expect to multiply your travel time by 10-20. Even the shortest trips suddenly become cumbersome, with basic issues like food getting cold before you can get it home. Of course bikes are faster, but they have most of the disadvantages of driving, and some of the disadvantages of walking, too.

Personally, I anxiously await a future where fully enclosed (fully electric) bikes are common:

http://www.gizmag.com/go/1811/

The EPA or CARB just has to crank-up the (CAFE) fuel efficiency requirements a few notches, and car makers will necessarily have to improve upon current sub-compacts, turning them into something an awful lot like the above in order to keep their numbers up, without needing to make all their vehicles EVs or hybrids. That's almost similar to what happened in the mid-90s, when GM was developing the EV1, Chrysler was meanwhile nearly giving-away as many GEM electric golf-carts as they could.

... you forgot my wheelchair. *smiley of your choice*

What you say might be true or not. But unless you can prove your accusations, your should not make them. And certainly you should not make them as A.C. It smells.

I don't post anonymously. Not a fan of it. When I have something to say, I put my name and my face right on it.

You also came here pretending to be someone else and defended your own article anonymously in the 3rd person ("Lunduke's impressionistic series of pieces" above). Sock puppeting/astroturfing.

That pathetic exercise indicates your journalistic ethics are below those of a subway rat. Nicely demonstrated.

I get that impression too.

Didn't mean to make you verklempt, chaver. Just giving my meynung of LXDE. If that makes me a full on chutspenik, then so be it!

[Also, I actually said some pretty nice things about LXDE in that article. Because LXDE deserved to have some rather nice things said about it.]

Since you mentioned ratpoison (the "r" is lower case... don't let the ratpoison team catch you using an uppercase "R"), here's my review.
http://www.networkworld.com/article/2604623/opensource-subnet/the-linux-desktop-a-week-review-ratpoison.html

That, and the LXDE review, are part of a "Desktop a week" series I'm doing where I use a different Desktop Environment ever week.

We don't need copper networks. Fibre is the way of the future. Fibre to the house errr node errr exchange for the win for Australia!

Should be a good fit for AT&T's U-Verse service. They've been responsible for the proliferation of network cabinets (VRADs) through neighborhoods they serve for many years... Though not remotely enough to put everyone 50m from a DSLAM.

CenturyLink is probably in the same boat. They're deploying fiber, but they might take the DSL upgrade path for their (many more) already-deployed DSL areas.

Verizon has gone the other way entirely, deploying FIOS instead of improving DSL, and trying to make POTS and DSL impossible to sign-up for, anywhere FIOS is available.

Hard to see how this will shake out in the US: higher bandwidth internet connections threaten the cable providers, and the ISP oligopoly - who are frequently cable companies too - seem more bent these days on protecting their vested oligopolic interests than in investing in new infrastructure or improving the quality of service.

I'm not hopeful that reason will prevail in the United States where better internet infrastructure is concerned. Sure would like a nice, zippy connection though. Maybe I should move to S. Korea.

So you're saying the folks flocking to cheap high powered Chromebooks here on Pipedot and elsewhere.... don't exist. And that I'm the delusional one. 'Cause people really really don't want small affordable powerful notebooks. Okay, right....

what would be a better word? Is there one? Or are we stuck with "showered with gamma particles" etc.?

Hmm, let's try a few...

Original: cosmic rays, which are dangerously radioactive.

Option1: cosmic rays, which are dangerously high-energy radiation.

Option2: cosmic rays, which are dangerous high-energy particles.

Option3: cosmic rays, which are dangerous high-energy atomic nuclei.

Option4: cosmic rays, which are dangerous ionizing radiation.

Option5: Cosmic Ray's, which is the most dangerous pub in the universe.

I'll second the vote for Moon+ Reader here. I registered and use the Pro version on my Transformer and find it consistently gives the best results, is very stable, and has good performance - with the exception of handling PDFs which could use some work. For that I tend to use EBookDroid, which also has a great 2-up display mode that I use for a couple of PDF photography magazines that have a lot of image heavy double page spreads.

Not having room due to a limited word count shouldn't be a problem for a competent writer; you don't have to publish test methodologies and reams of results in that case, just summarise your findings. He does say that LXDE is insanely fast, before launching into how mundane it is and that he can't think of anything much to say. A far more useful article would have been to comment on about how much quicker (or not) it felt when trying to run a remote desktop compared with KDE/Gnome/Windows/OSX, how the simple interface and lack of visual FX might be contributing to that, point out the inconsistencies in the interface, and opine about why/when you might want to chose LXDE over other distros.

As stands, it smacks of an article that was phoned in just to meet an arbitrary word count and get paid that probably would have been better left unpublished by the site's editor.

Curiosity but also a chance for me to learn: what would be a better word? Is there one? Or are we stuck with "showered with gamma particles" etc.?

LXDE is boring and I think most would agree that's a selling point. The writer needed to attract some eyeballs, painted LXDE as the 'meh' desktop, and got his article linked here (free marketing). Well done Mr. Lunduke...

You've got an incredible level of self-delusion going on to believe the article supports your claim.

Your link merely confirms what I've been saying, that people desperately want netbooks at a netbook price point but that they were terminally crippled through artificial constraints by MS and Intel.

So, thanks?

Somebody's been Googling himself!

1) You're completely wrong about what I was saying.
2) It's not just a theory, it's based on plenty of evidence:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/dec/31/netbooks-dead-2013

+1 for the ziplock bag!

I'm not sure about the technical feasibility of this, but someone really needs to find a way to make a laptop with a mechanical keyboard.

Once you go cherryMX, you never go back...MX.

The last time I used PCMan, I found that it required a lot of tweaking to get basic functionality that you expect out of a file manager, and for not much gain. I'm using Thunar right now and it pretty much does everything one might want while still being pretty light. It also has the all important "Open this folder in terminal" option, which should really be standard in all file managers.

...that he was trying to be tongue in cheek about there being nothing to complain about, which isn't always the case with GUIs (especially if they're from MS).

That it uses PCMan has me interested in trying it.

You're right. I'm wondering what this guy's qualifications are and on what technical merits he makes his determinations. I mean, to work for Network World or whatever you have to be pretty savvy, know technology, and have a good working knowledge of systems and code, right? Or do you just have to be a journalistic hack with a whiny penchant for criticizing themes.

You want an interface that surprises you? Let's set your journalist butt down in front of a Ratpoison instance and see how you do. You surprised now, you journalistic fraud, you?

You might be new, but you seem to know exactly what to do. Welcome aboard, grandpa :)

Lunduke's impressionistic series of pieces on different interfaces don't have room for in-depth analysis, presumably because his column is only allotted so much space in the publication.

In any case, I think LXDE is fine for someone with constrained hardware resources, although it seems to me an ungainly and unattractive hodgepodge of disparate elements.. It's also fine for someone without hardware constraints. It's inarguable, though, that having adequate contemporary hardware opens up a much wider range of choice. Given that, choosing a desktop environment because you like the way it looks and feels is just as legitimate as choosing anything else. Why use something you don't like using unless you have no other choice?

Yeah, the reviewer completely missed the point of LXDE. Lightweight desktops are aimed at people that just want the UI to get the hell out of the way and let them get on with doing actual work without any distractions or bogging down systems with limited resources (e.g. a lightweight CPU, low memory, or limited bandwidth for remote GUI desktops), LXDE does that pretty much perfectly. I prefer KDE for my main *NIX desktop, albeit with most of the distracting bling switched off, but even with a high bandwidth connection if I want a remote GUI desktop I tend to switch to LXDE, XFCE or something similar.

Instead of writing about the lack of any bling, the article should have focussed on benchmarking how much better it performs vs. the likes of KDE and Gnome with limited resources available, the benefits provided by lack of UI distractions, what has been removed to facilitate that, and maybe even how you can possibly add back in those bits of bling that you really can't do without. What a waste of bits...

My point is, cosmic rays or space itself cannot be "radioactive". Radioactivity is a property of ordinary matter.

But yeah, I'm being needlessly pedantic. Thanks for the submission, I did enjoy the "article". And thanks for linking directly to the source, by the way -- that's something that rarely happens on /. these days.