Recent Comments

• FOSS Zealots
• Atheists
• Agnostics
• Christians
• Lions
• Romans
• Muslims
• Pipedot staffers
• Other religion(please specify in comments)
• The Scotts
• Victorian Gentlemen

and you can obviously flip it on the next poll day to ascertain the least trusted groups.

Hmm, i get the impression that you may have something against people who identify as atheist, that's unfortunate, and not terribly christian of you, but i'll forgive you.

Faith in the existence of a god is key to christianity, the fact that there is no evidence to base one's belief in god upon, makes it an odd belief to hold, for a rational human being. Of course humans aren't rational, and religion is probably a great coping strategy for keeping a self-aware ape sane, but that doesn't mean we have to accept it as a positive influence on science reporting.

Remember, guys, don't feed the trolls.

I'm not aware of any religion which requires "unquestioning belief". It's common for the religious to examine their beliefs, and sometimes to struggle with faith.

I guess we could say atheism requires an unhealthy excess of skepticism, ego and self-confidence, and a complete lack of humility.

That's not to say that atheists can't be perfectly good scientists, but a certain mistrust until they've proven themselves isn't actually entirely unreasonable.

These posts all appear to be in response to various crucifixions, so i'm not sure i was far wrong. Yes, of course dismissing a christian for being christian is just as, erm, well, almost as bad as dismissing an atheist for... wait, no, christianity requires an unquestioning belief in mythical beings, that's not a great baseline for a scientific mindset, sorry. That's not to say that christians can't be perfectly good scientists, but a certain mistrust until they've proven themselves isn't actually entirely unreasonable, i tend to be sceptical about untested things(and not in a "well you can't test the big bang /theory/" way).
The thing that tipped me off, to the fact that it was a christian publication was some nonsense related to cheerleaders praying and a quiz inviting me to discover whether i'm smarter than an atheist, great stuff, guys.

In the interests of openness, i'm an atheist, are any of the pipedot staff committed christians?

• Mobile computing absorbing the next generation of nerds, prompting switch from hobbyist devs producing open source, often collaboratively, for free, to producing fiercely commercial software, designed to drive ad revenue and a marketplace for google, for peanuts.
• Secureboot
• Windows 7 actually being a fairly likeable OS
• Ageing nerds giving up and buying macs and iDevices.
• Netflix and the death of principled geeks("OMG PONIES, NETFLIX COMIGN TO LINUX", "erm, guys, it relies on google shoehorning binary only DRM support into HTML5, this is horrible", "BUT PONIES!!!1, TAKE MY MONEY ALREADY!!!")
• Android(see 1)
• CowboyNeal's undercover mission to sabotage Ubuntu just as it was becoming a sane desktop and gaining popularity
• I don't like change, this is all very sad, why did slashdot have to die(it appears to be full of dudebro scum and angry misogynists, it may as well be dead at this point)?
• Software as a service, web 2.0, etc.

I realise these aren't exactly viable poll options, and could be in large part bollocks, on top of that.

Condemning a person or organization for identifying as Christian, is just as bad as condemning them for identify as atheist... CSMonitor is actually one of the most reputable sources of news out there.

Here are some +5 comments about CSMonitor on /.

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4075989&cid=44533929

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4075989&cid=44533281

http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4075989&cid=44533567

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=188407&cid=15530463

http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=188407&cid=15530813

I had a wtf moment when i discovered i was on a site entitled Christian Science Monitor, thanks for linking to somewhere a little more reputable, or at least less unsettling. Does christianity come up regularly around here, i imagine an article like this would have been crucified back on /.

Options include: AOL, Hotmail, yahoo, gmail, "work", "school"

Dice unleashes Slashdot Beta, everyone scatters. Pipedot born ...

Websites you used to visit all the time that, rather than die, just went craptastic. My vote is for msnbc.com, which turned into nbcnews.com about a year ago, and metrofied their home page 6 months ago. Haven't been back since. There have been others but I can't remember them now.

Put a choice for each generation, Atari to PS4/Xbox One.

"Open Sesame"
"Mekka Lekka Hi Mekka Hiney Ho"
"Shazam"
"I Have the Power!"
"Beetlejuice" x3
"Bibidi Babadi Boo"
"Word to Your Mother"
etc.

Maybe a poll about what android version people are running?

[Ed. note: I've got a bad feeling about this.]

"The Lord giveth (uselessd) and the Lord taketh away (this)"

But let's be positive: the good thing is that they're not Gnome's developers. So maybe they can get it right ?

Seems the best way to promote new development is to release something that fails or that everyone despises.

OpenSSL fails -> LibreSSL released; upstream cleanup and fixes pushed out.
TrueCrypt closes -> DoxBox released.
Gnome sucks -> XFCE, LXDE, and other alternative desktops benefit.
Upstart falls short -> systemd developed.
systemd despised -> a number of new init development projects emerge.

OK, unfortunately we can't modify a poll once it's been published, but you're right. So, what's your device?

Sounds like a strange remake of The Gods Must Be Crazy

A little surprised your payback is that long even though the investment was under $10K.

Ya, I live in an area with very cheap electricity. With my bill previously only being $85 a month, it takes a while to pay off $9000.

What about that reliance on the remote Internet service for all monitoring and reporting? What happens if they go out of business? I'd much rather see a local option.

I would too. That's why I slurp the data off their servers into my own database every day. If they go out of business, I'll at least still have my current data set. Of course, their own webpage is set up to display the statistic data too - I'm sure a lot of their customers wouldn't have the ability/desire to code up their own database and host a web interface like I did.

Your Leaf comparison is a bit slanted. That's a $30,000 car versus my well equipped 35mpg gas econobox that cost less than half that.

I totally agree that the Leaf is more expensive than similar sized ICE cars. Sure, I'd rather have only spent $15-20k on it, but I really wanted an electric plug in vehicle. When I bought my VW Jetta new in 2002, I swore that it would be my last gas-powered vehicle. For many years, while all the major car manufacturers totally ignored EVs, I dreaded having to go the home-made route and build everything myself if my Jetta ever died. But then Tesla happened. The Prius became popular. Nissan bet big on the Leaf, and even Chevy came out with the Volt.

So, I was already looking to replace my 12 year old car with something... Here are the models that I test-drove/researched:

• Plug in Prius (nearly no range on EV alone due to small 4.4 kWh battery)
• Chevy Volt (over $50k and little more than a hybrid with a small battery)
• Tesla Model S (nice, but too expensive for my blood, sorry)
• Nissan Leaf (correct range, zero emissions, heck of a lot cheaper than a Tesla)

Obviously, I picked the Leaf. The U.S. has a nice $7,500 federal rebate on the first "X" number of EV cars produced for each model. I was expecting to keep driving my ageing Jetta for a few more years, but the "X" number was just about to be reached for the Leaf. So I bought the bullet a little early so that I could get the full federal rebate.

I'm imagining what that would look like: You're hanging out there with the family, a helicopter goes by. Suddenly, the sky is filled with sex toys attached to parachutes. Banzai! Not sure if it's the best solution, but it would be damned funny to see.

The old trolls called it 'cute', but it never really caught on. Fortunately. I hate 'cute'. You can say 'I am a C++ guy', 'I am a GTK+ guy', 'I am a JAVA guy'... but how does 'I am a cute guy' sound? :-D

And here's the sequel:


Solar Power - Part 4
Solar Power - Part 5
Solar Power - Part 6


Solar Power - Part 7
Solar Power - Part 8
Solar Power - Part 9

On the high-end of 100mi/day (just 5 days/week), I get close to $3,000/year in gasoline, for a break-even of just 5 years.

And that's being extra-generous to your "35mpg gas econobox," since you'll waste gas idling in traffic, while an EV won't, your mileage will suffer significantly in city driving, you might have to go significantly out-of-your-way to fuel-up, etc.

I tend to agree the payoff isn't there if you don't drive as much, but there's a significant use-case where PEVs already do pay-off, right now, and I'd love to see a small plug-in hybrid SUV...

Then maybe the best bet is to do a trade-in program where people can bring their current cooking pots/pans and get a 1:1 trade for new, safe cookware.

Not that it's hard to figure out, but all 3 of those links point to the first page.

My "landline" is VoIP and I can hardly squeeze through a FAX 20% of the time, let alone a nice 56k session. :(

remains for specialization and outsourcing, meaning Apple is still sort of the only vertical integrator around here, even if they rely on others for the manufacturing process. The risk of course is of over-specialization, where all the different chip manufacturers wind up waiting on line for the one foundry that has the tech and the equipment to actually fab the chips. Your average Joe doesn't just decide to throw his hat in the ring and start up a foundry, meaning the risk of overspecialization becomes a security risk.

Just thinking out loud here. Maybe it will lead to lowered prices for chips, which is a good thing, and would free up resources for innovation. Was just reading Ritchie's rant from 30 years ago that little innovation was happening anymore and Linux was simply a copy of Unix technology. I think he was deploring that we'd largely come away from investigation into things like alternative chip architectures, the Lisp machines, and similar experiments. He's right - I think that era died out a while ago, while we've decided to milk the current architecture to its eventual limits instead.

It would have to be dead-simple tech, though. I've spent the past 25 years living in countries (half of that in Africa) where people steal manhole covers, melt them down over charcoal fires, and bang them into cooking pots. Just to point out that the level of tech here needs to be at around the level of people using charcoal as their fuel source.

Hmm, you've either thought more deeply about this, or are way smarter than me, or probably both.

In that case, anyone want to buy a used Trendnet 56K dial-up modem, cheap? :)

Hang on, I've been planning on building either a BBS or a gophernet site. Maybe I'll hang onto it a bit longer.

It's cute and funny... but I did stop reading the summary as well once I realised how much of a headache it would be.

Still, no distro is better than arch anyway, so I didn't need to read the article. :p

Hey Bryan nice writeup! FYI those 3 links all point to episode 1. It took some elite URL hacking to read the rest of your series.

Glad you like your system. A little surprised your payback is that long even though the investment was under $10K.

Just two critical comments:

1. What about that reliance on the remote Internet service for all monitoring and reporting? What happens if they go out of business? I'd much rather see a local option.

2. Your Leaf comparison is a bit slanted. That's a $30,000 car versus my well equipped 35mpg gas econobox that cost less than half that. That's an awfully big differential to make back on 50-100 miles per day (say $7 in gas) even with your "free" electricity.

Sorry, but your summary is damn near impossible for me to read. I'm not a native English speaker, and I can't be bothered to learn stupid slang that's rarely used. I would have liked to know more about Trisomy GNU/Linux, but now I probably won't because of the bad summary.

I've added some info on my solar installation to my journal:

Solar Power - Part 1
Solar Power - Part 2
Solar Power - Part 3

Also, you can view my hourly production stats since August 2013 in a neat graphical form or the raw table form.

agreed.
But maybe I will give it a try in some kvm because there the emulated hardware should be quite "standard" ;)

Am looking at this one now

Woohoo! They have a torrent on their download page

:-)

Good to see these sites have donation forms there too.

Very informative and cost effective if you can live with just the basic channels. Unfortunately, because a lot of the shows that I enjoy are aired only on cable channels, I'm afraid I'd miss out on too much.

Game of Thrones (HBO), Dexter (Showtime), Defiance (SyFy), etc...

I would still forgo the cable subscription (I've never had one) and instead get a Netflix DVD plan. This way you get both TV and movies at the full Bluray 1080p quality with no censorship (cursewords, altered scenes, etc) and no commercials.

Thanks for a great review! I enjoy reading these weekly reviews. The distros picked are a bit odd, so there is a big chance nobody know them well enough for commenting and staying on topic at this point.

Way to go, registered Pipedot users. Keep up the pointless downmodding and renew my lack of faith in your judgment.

If you disagree with someone or find them rude, SAY SO. Stop downmodding like weenies.

Another challenge for the scientific community: Find a cheap way to remove lead from recycled metals as part of the recovery process

Good question. The last mobile gaming device I used was a Nintendo game & watch. I had Donkey Kong and Bombsweeper.

For the post-apocalyptic future, you should stock-up on low-power computer and ham radio equipment, in a bunker and sufficiently EMP shielded. Shortwave radio would definitely be the fastest and cheapest way to bootstrap regional, national, and international communications systems again.

In the longer term, as long as people are around who remember which technologies worked out and which ones were dead-ends, and which feats were possible and which were never realized, the world would be rebuilt from the dirt, to largely-modern standards, pretty quickly. First farming the most successful crops, then engines and electricity, then information exchange. I

f you're going to lay a wire, you wouldn't resort to dial-up, at least not for long, but would jump up to something faster, like DSL or right to fiber optics.

population problem solved

Am having a look now actually. Some of us take 10 hours to see the article :)

Really? After they sold their PC business and declared a move towards services years ago

This is a tried and proven way to solve the problems of over population and poverty

The Middle East only has oil, which isn't used for electric generation almost anywhere, so solar panels aren't a direct replacement. Rising oil prices would spur adoption of PEVs, which might slightly increase electric prices, indirectly, but not too badly. A study of PEV owners shows they choose the option of peak/off-peak metering from the electric company, and then charge their EVs starting right at midnight, when rates are lowest. The higher electrical demand makes PV more attractive at homes with PEVs, too, but it's still a rather indirect relationship.

Germany certainly has a lot of solar capacity installed, but I don't think ANYBODY wants to copy that model... They got it done by driving electricity prices through the roof, several times higher than the highest electric prices in the US, to pay for it.

Started reverse enginerring the baseband there. ;-)

If we all remember (and mentioned in TFA), leaded gasoline was linked to surge in violent crime, and probably causative due to lead poisoning effect on the brain. I can't fathom that this isn't hurting already fragile situations.

I have a pretty skewed vision of debt. I have virtually none beside the home and the monthly visa that I pay off.

Even so, the debt on the panels is not like the debt on your car.

http://www.solarcity.com/commercial/homebuilders
What happens if the solar panels or inverter need repair?
If we're alerted of a problem through SolarGuard, we will give you call to help diagnose the problem and dispatch a repair team to fix it if needed. SolarCity will perform all equipment repairs at no cost to you.

I don't know what that looks like on financial documents, but part of the reason SolarCity can put panels on your roof for no money down is the fact that it is so low risk. People pay their energy bill, and there isn't much that will go wrong with 'em.

I don't know credit scores, but I know there is such a thing as "healthy debt" and "unhealthy debt". A mortgage generally falls in the former. Credit cards generally the latter. I'm thinking that panels are more like the former than the latter.

Yeah, moving after a year might be harder if you have panels on your roof. I expect/hope that attitude will change over time as more folks get panels and become aware of the benefits. If you have a high energy bill, I think that'd be the biggest factor in deciding whether or not to go solar.

Thank you for a reasonable discussion, too!

I have zero security concern about sshd on my VPS. It's pretty much child's play to make it mathematiocally impossible for them to break in even if they keep trying for billions of years using thousands of bots.
1) Disallow root sshd logins. And never use root or sudo.
2) For admin, have a second UID 0 user account with a long name that no one would ever find in a dictionary. Give it a long, super obscure password and make sure it is set to use SHA512 hashing. Then login to this account using an ssh key which has a long obscure passphrase. Use ssh-agent to manage the passphrase.
3) For ordinary user accounts, use the same name and password policy.