Recent Comments

Wow, agreed! That was really great - thanks for the link.

Ha ha, we're still thinner than LotusNotes though! That thing is bloated indeed :) I suspect we're leaner than Sharepoint, too.

I've been using enigmail for years but the recent update to 1.7.2 made it unusable.

Besides being suddenly very slow, it is now saving *all* drafts as encrypted even the one sent to people not using PGP. I don't know what's going on, but the end result seems to be that if the mail I'm writing has embedded images (*not* distant online images, just inline in the flow of the text), as soon as it is auto-saved in the draft folder (after 2-3 minutes), the inline images become "broken" (white square with dead link symbol).

The solution I've seen so far ? don't use html in emails, just plain text. But that doesn't fit very well in my workflow of sending inline graphs with comments around.

I downgraded to 1.7 since I'm don't feel impacted by the bugs (I never used the encryption, only the signing) and it's working fine. I'll try to fill a bug whenever I've time.

Sorry for the Friday morning's rant ... seriously :-)

Sure, lots of individuals have used Linux as their desktop for years and years, but many companies assume they can't function with Linux. The company I worked for, until very recently, ran Linux since at least 2005 when I joined up, and from what I could tell, about a dozen years before that. (They got a new CEO who now assumes that all of the problems the company has had since 2008 are Linux's fault, hence why I, a systems developer, left.)

A big problem most people seem to have with Linux is the assumption that "you get what you pay for." Many people also assumed that it was "old technology" because we used FVWM (which is very, very old indeed), so the whole system must have been "outdated."

If I knew some magic way to get people to realize that Linux is worth the learning curve, I would get everyone I knew converted over in a heartbeat. The only places Linux seems to shine are the places where it out-competes on the full experience, not just price: servers (especially lots of servers) are easier to manage than Windows and Android is more accessible, and has more features people want, than an iPhone. If price were the only factor everyone would have switched to Linux on their desktops in the early 90's, but they didn't because Linux was extremely difficult to use/install at the time. The times, they are a changin', but I think for the average Joe, they need to keep a changin' for many years to come.

Indeed old news. I have been using Linux (SuSE) on the desktop since 2005. On the server sinc 1999. I am not alone.

This is why I think this is a great thing. It will finally get them to update to a better interface.

Why don't you just bring your own whatever-your-laptop-supports-to-VGA adaptor? They're usually only £15 ($20 to $30) these days. Any serious public speaker has one.

Slashdot started out as ChipsNDip.

You could submit a feature request to show/hide topics on the front page.

Sounds good. Bring it on!

I'm using my laptop for talks, and the absolute only graphics interface which is reliable available for the various beamers is VGA. Even if the beamer in principle offers another interface, there's absolutely no guarantee that a connector for that is installed where you'd put your laptop.

For Apple, that's about the most damning comment they could receive. Being average means they have failed, the 'reality distortion reactor' has stopped spinning, and Apple products are just one of the bunch. What could be worse?

Thank you, my fine man. This is something I had not even considered! Like my high school guidance counselor, I think you have convinced me to abstain for the time being.

What about my time? When I buy a MacBook, I know I'll get a laptop that will mostly work with little effort on my part, and it will be relatively durable, even if it is expensive. I don't want to spent $500 on a non-Apple laptop and then waste $5000 of my time trying to get OS X to run on it, to only get it kind of working in the end, just so I can avoid buying a $2000 laptop. A fella like me just doesn't have time to waste on crap like that!

Well done, AC. By the way, for what it's worth, I wouldn't worry about this place overdosing on anime. Anyone who wants a more intense dose of anime in their newsfeed probably knows of better sites than this one.

Seriously, help!!!! I like reading stuff other people submit, too! As long as I'm the one posting, I hope you all like opensuse, FreeBSD, and Android, because that's what you're going to get! :)

Exactly so, Vanderhoth. It's just that Zafe invited opinion in the summary. I'm an old geek too and it's never been my thing, but the occasional link is very much not a big deal. :)

So what I'm saying is do NOT stop liking what I don't like. :-)

It is looking far more like zafiro's blog recently :p

Luckily for us, he has good taste.

That was really kind of awesome...

If it was three or for anime articles in a row I might be inclined to agree with you, but one every now and then isn't an issue. I for one am an anime fan and thought this was a nice piece to skim over. You could have chosen to just not read it if you don't like anime. For a lot of us "geeks" anime has been a part of our lives since we were clacking away on our first keyboards.

BTW, I've really enjoyed the content coming out of the pipe for the last few days. Lots of great and interesting articles. I've noticed the comments are also increasing too. Keep it up.

Exactly, genius, the hummus doesn't belong and neither do cartoons. Teachers told your folks you had issues with reading comprehension, right? That, or you're a particularly poor troll.

Hey, Captain Butthurt - what kind of a retard comes to a tech site and then cries himself to sleep because he can't read about his favorite brands of hummus? Those topics don't belong on a tech site. Try SoylentNews.org, which is more broadly focused. Or go try buggering off.

I'm going to go join the "greenpeace" blog and complain they don't have enough articles about awesome hunting rifles.

Dumb ass.

The link between anime and geek culture is undisputed. I'm unaware of a similar affection for Joan Rivers or any of the Muppets except perhaps Beaker. As for this being B's personal blog, have a look at the history (http://pipedot.org/pipe/history) and see how many others have contributed.

Well done, my friend. Fixed.

Yo momma is so fat it makes GNU/Linux, Firefox, KDE, Gnome, XFCE, PulseAudio, systemd, bash, Vim, Emacs, X.org, OpenOffice and StarOffice look lean in comparison!

Anime is so ingrained into Japanese culture that they often illustrate posters and release promotional materials depicting characters drawn in the "anime" style.

Take, for example, this video promoting the joint JAXA and NASA space launch of the Dual-Frequency Precipitation Radar (DPR) satellite. This animated short relates to a real life launch of a real satellite project and is very geeky indeed.

Young kids shouldn't have a problem reading the predicable dialog in Sailor Moon. Honestly, they wouldn't even have to read for long as they would learn many of the words and start to become fluent in the language.

Watch an episode of Sailor Moon, or better yet a better series like Card Captor Sakura with the orginal Japanese dialog and with the subtitles turned off. Even with no previous experience, even adults should be able to pick up a few words and begin the process of learning the foreign language.

As an adult, yes. But as the summary and article imply, this is a great way to introduce kids who are too young to be able to read that quickly.

No, I honestly don't see a point there. "At least some geeks" are interested in knitting or baking or cars or country music too, but that doesn't merit a random new recipe or ballad or poncho or sedan design making the front page -- unless there's an interesting and unique tech angle.

Again, if it's here because you're into anime and it's your site, fine, I get it, but there's nothing inherently geeky, let alone techie, about a particular cartoon being released.

All that whined, I mean said, if you want you could take a poll, but I recommend you ignore my opinion and do what makes you happy. Rule by overthought consensus is what's making Soylent such a miserable place. :)

Much like Microsoft: Windows 8, Office et al come to mind.The term is: Testing in Production

Systemd is actually quite modular. Only the logic that is necessary to be there is in pid 1. So the quote in the summary is FUD, pure and simple. It's certainly not the windows-ization of Linux.

Except that init scripts have always been very fragile and complicated. In short they've never worked that well. They are full of hacked logic to check for running instances using all manner of devices (PID files, grep for the process name in ps, check /proc), they don't lend themselves to parallel execution, and they have no facilities whatsoever for process supervision. Sure you can hack a cronjob (and many a sysadmin has done that!), or use a third-party supervisor daemon (who watches the watchers?). Every commercial unix out there has ditched system V init scripts for these reasons. For example, Solaris hasn't had init scripts ever since maybe Solaris 9? Apple ditched init scripts in OS X quite a long time ago. 10.4 I think?

Systemd isn't that complicated. It's highly modular also. It does a good job and it is remarkably stable for such a new project. Rather than hacking a complex init script, I can create a service in just 3 or 4 lines of a simple, clear, conf file now. In fact it dramatically simplifies the development of custom services. I don't even have to do the fancy fork dance to put a daemon in the background. From a sysadmin point of view, this sort of thing has been sorely lacking in Linux. If I feel inclined, I can integrate with systemd's socket management system, and get instant, transparent parallel startup capability. But the same daemon can still run on non-systemd machines (if I actually implemented daemonization myself). I'm hard pressed to find any negatives, really. And this is coming from a guy who had nothing good to say about systemd before I actually used it. Seems like most of the FUD comes from people like me, folks who've not interacted with it much at all. It's not the only game in town, but it certainly works, and I have no problems with major distros standardizing on it.

On a related note, I would not want to live without pulseaudio either. I currently use pulseaudio regularly to do things that were never possible with ALSA before, such as directing certain program's outputs to certain audio devices. Very handy indeed.

You can boycott systemd if you want, of course. Anyone is free to roll their own distro if they feel like their distro of choice has been bought out by some nefarious power. There are several alternative init systems to choose from.

Other recommended examples:

• Denno Coil - Augmented reality (think future Google glass)
• Stratos 4 - Shooting down a group of comets before they impact Earth
• Twin Spica - Astronaut training school
• Chobits - Kawaii robot companions
• Cowboy Bebop - Bounty hunters in space (think Firefly)

Slashdot has had an "anime" topic since forever. Many anime series include hard sci-fi topics, such as space-junk, Internet, cybernetics, and the obligatory giant robots!

Surely at least some geeks are interested in these things, ne?

From Forbes:

"According to CNBC, Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, called the event "the night Apple became average."

Both Broadwell and Skylake will use the same 14 nm process node. Because process node shrinks benefit power usage (important for mobile) the most, a Broadwell model is a reasonable choice. Similarly, ultrabooks like the Macbook use ultra low power DDR3 ram already. The voltage drop is the main difference between DDR3 and DDR4 for laptop usage.

The one thing you would want to wait on Skylake for is HDMI 2.0. If you plan on connecting a 4K HDMI external monitor to your laptop, Broadwell will not be able to run it at 60Hz. Broadwell can push 4K at 30Hz over HDMI (the older version), which is fine for movies but will feel sub-optimal for general desktop use. Or you could use Display Port to get 4K@60Hz by using the fancy chaining feature of Display Port (your screen is actually split into 2 lower resolution virtual panels, but the signal is still routed through the same cable.) Also note that Apple screens use a Thunderbolt cable, which means Display Port will be used. HDMI is far more common in the non-apple world.

Here is an example of a new native HDMI 2.0 4K screen.

"Since I'm considering buying a MacBook"

I think I see your problem. ;)

That, and the whole weird "fella" thing.

Seriously, spend $500 on a good hackintosh laptop now, and another $500 on a better hackintosh in 2 years. Problem solved, and you've saved several thousand dollars.

I actually RTFA this time and completely disagree. There's nothing remotely hyperbolic about the vulnerabilities, the shameful lack of disclosure, or the teacher/journalist's quote.

Who goes to all the trouble of using e-mail encryption? The paranoid, hobbyists, and PEOPLE WHO REALLY NEED IT.

Of mother*(@#&%()& COURSE someone being tortured as a direct result of this false encryption is a very real possibility.

I've never used this particular plugin, in part since like most people I've given in to the inevitability of government surveillance over everything (and in part because its use actually draws attention, and most of all because no one else can read your mail to them without a major hassle on their part). But I am moderately shocked at how badly the developers handled this situation, if this report is to be believed....

I'm going to need a new computer within the next 12 to 18 months. Since I'm considering buying a MacBook, and they aren't cheap at all, I'd want this computer to be viable for many years to come. Now I've been hearing that Broadwell-based Mac laptops will likely be available late this year or early next year. Should a fella like me buy one of those, or should I wait until Skylake is available and used in MacBooks so that there's a greater likelihood of me getting a laptop that uses DDR4 RAM? I'm pretty sure I'll be able to wait. DDR4 sounds like absolutely sweetness to me, and if it will prolong the useful life of an expensive laptop purchase, then I would have no problem waiting!

We can post articles about Joan Rivers' death? About McDonald's workers trying to strike / form unions? About terrorism and 9/11/14 tomorrow? About my favorite brands of hummus?

'Cause all those nontech things affect me and others WAY more than someone's particular fondness for a style of animation.

In other words, NO WAY does this belong on Pipedot in my opinion. Unless it's just B's personal blog, which of course is his right.

It's not just a tecnical problem--it's a spelling problem too!

Nobody understands the cloud!

Probably the best quote from that movie. :)

I own a few region 2 anime discs that wouldn't play in my standalone region 1 player or my computer drive. I eventually broke down and bought an expensive "region free" DVD player that the manufacturer had to specially modify - just so that I could watch my discs.

The whole region locking thing really is a pain.

Considering that PGP never got off the ground for the general population perhaps this decade it will as phone users see the need for all communication across public networks to be private. Or, as least not easily read in clear text.
What would be good is to have pgp key generation as part of the phone setup and enabled by default in email and sms applications.

Much is said about piracy killing the video industry yet had it not been for the underground rippers subbers and dubbers I would not have gotten a start in anime.
In the 90s I was a huge Ranma fan. The only videos were crappy but huge 100mb badly subbed episodes. It would be 10 years until I put down cash to buy it. 10 years. Even then it was a PITA which I got around by having a dvd drive region set for it and otherJapanese discs. I have often wondered how many people just give up. By the time I saw the Macross box set I had moved on in life with no interest in reliving weekday morning cartoons. That said, I could go for some Samurai Pizza Cats ... will check youtube :-)
Good to see a classic anime back on, and here's hoping that we see more soon.

Everyone's problem? I don't think it's ANYONE'S problem!

Nothing unusual happened. People posted their photos for others to see, and a few million extra people came along since someone moderately evil noticed the door lock combination was "000".

In other words, (a) I agree with you and (b) people still be REALLY stupid about how this whole Internet thing works.

It's not a magic box that does everything you want and protects your ass while doing it. That's all still up to you.

I'm a big fan of watching media in its original native language. Japanese animation should always be watched with the original Japanese audio. Subtitles are nearly always available, and preferable to dubbing, if you don't understand the native language.

Anime fan-subbing is perhaps the world's largest subtitling community. With high quality releases of popular titles mere days after airing, the fan-subbed versions often far surpass the quality of the eventual commercial release.

But what about the legality of fan-subs? Well... the content industry shot itself in the foot on that front. When digital video came out (LaserDisk, DVD, Bluray, etc) the industry divided the world into different "regions." U.S. and Canada are region 1, Japan and Europe are region 2, and Australia and South America are stuck in region 4. The idea being, they can charge different prices for the same content to different areas of the world. Charging higher prices to wealthier countries is, of course, illegal under free trade agreements - but something being illegal never stopped the content industry! However, this also brings up a small window of time, where a work is released in region 2, but not available for purchase in region 1. During this window, animation companies normally turn a blind eye to fan-subbing groups - as long as they promise to cease distribution once the official commercial license is finalized.

I think that at this point, its pretty much a lost cause. All the major distros have accepted it. What would make them go back on their decision? Plenty of people are fine with systemd.

Best comment ever

IIUC, what Tiobe measures is current discussion. It's not a measure of popularity, exactly. More like
sqrt ((current use + interest) * (interest + fear) )

Also, Obj-C isn't one community. I'm really only interested in the Linux community, so anything that involves Carbon isn't very interesting, even if it DOES involve Obj-C. Others feel the exact opposite way. There's some overlap, but it's not huge (even though the Apple users are the larger segment they're effectively so divorced by the libraries that they use that there's little community).

P.S.: I'm not *that* interested in Obj-C, and this comment is about a year or so ago. And licensing issues mean I'm not likely to ever even LOOK at most things put up by Apple.

My first impression - blocky, square shape, fabric wristband - is that it looked like a 4th generation ipod nano on a strap. Picture here if you've forgotten what it looks like:
http://epicagear.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/ipod-nano-6th-gen-review.jpg