08.13.11

Contents

• GNU/Linux
  • Distributions
• Free Software/Open Source
• Leftovers

GNU/Linux

• Applications

  • Proprietary

    • SingleOS Launches Fuscan Linux Cloud 2.0

      Software company SingleOS (www.fuscan.com) announced on Friday that it had officially released version 2.0 of Fuscan Linux Cloud, an update to the company’s cloud software automation solution.

  • Instructionals/Technical

    • Software RAID in Linux – a small tutorial

• Distributions

  • Debian Family

    • Derivatives

      • Canonical/Ubuntu

        • Ubuntu 11.10 Has a New Login Manager

          The brand-new display manager, LightDM, has been introduced by Canonical in the current development release of the Ubuntu 11.10 operating system.

          With last night’s updates, the current development release of the upcoming Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) operating system got a brand new and slick login manager, called LightDM.

        • [Screenshots and Video] New Improved Unity Interface Lands in Ubuntu 11.10

          Unity Interface has just received a massive overhaul and the dash looks better than ever. Applications and Files Lenses on the launcher have been removed and are now integrated into the dash only. A new Music Lens has also been introduced for quickly searching and browsing your favorite artists.

          The Ubuntu Button on top left corner has been removed and a new big Ubuntu orb on the launcher now activates the main dash menu. Active blur option for the dash is turned on by default now giving it a really sleek and polished look. Application title, window controls and app menu on top panel now show all the way to the left.

Free Software/Open Source

• Web Browsers

  • Chrome

    • Friday Time-Waster: Play DOS Games In Your Chrome Browser

      NaClBox (get it?) is a port of DOSBox that allows DOS games to be played right in your browser. Right now you can play titles like Star Wars Tie Fighter complete with multi-voice MIDI sound and hot hot VGA graphics. It works on Macs, PCs, and Linux machines and runs under Chrome 13.

• Openness/Sharing

  • Khan Academy: Spreading Education In the Open Source Way

Leftovers

• U.K.’s broken social contract blamed for riots

  The spark that lit riots in Britain last week is rooted in the government’s radical alteration of the social contract with its citizens, says a Toronto psychiatrist who was born and raised in the U.K.
  People at the lower margins of society feel abandoned and powerless to the point where they lash out in fear, says Dr. Kwame McKenzie.

  British society is undergoing a psychological realignment along American lines rather than traditional European values, where there is a straightforward social contract between the individual and the state, he says.

• On the rap sheet: ‘looter’ who pocketed £1, and a suspect caught with an empty box

  Steven Keith, 43, of Longsight, Manchester was remanded to jail accused of stealing items worth £1 after allegedly burgling M1 News.

  He was said to be among rioters who tore through central Manchester on Tuesday night. He was charged with burglary and a judge at Manchester magistrates’ court remanded him in custody until next week.

• Health/Nutrition

  • What Kind Of Gm Plants Are On The Market Internationally?

    The expansion of genetic engineering into the food industry has resulted in the growing of GM plants over the past decade or so. Genetically modified food is not only limited to a specific country because several countries worldwide have already adapted this agricultural technology. In fact, there are now a variety of plants that are grown using genetic engineering techniques.

  • Welcome to the Age of GMO Industry Self-Regulation

    As I reported last week, the USDA’s recent surprise decision not to regulate genetically modified bluegrass poked yet more holes in an already-porous regime for overseeing GM crops—essentially to the point of regulatory collapse.

    There were a few important strands I wasn’t able to wrestle into the story. The main one is an odd letter that USDA secretary Tom Vilksack sent Scotts Miracle-Gro as an addendum to the agency’s response to Scott’s GM bluegrass petition. Vilsack’s letter, dated July 1, acknowledges concerns that GM bluegrass will contaminate non-GM bluegrass—that is, that the Roundup Ready gene will move through wind-blown pollen and work its way into non-modified varieties. This is the process known as “gene flow,” and it has already been well-established for GM corn and other modified crops.

  • 93 percent of unborn babies contaminated with GMO toxins, study finds

• Defence/Police/Aggression

  • Torture in the US Prison System: The Endless Punishment of Leonard Peltier

    In June 2006, the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America’s Prisons released “Confronting Confinement,” a 126-page report summarizing its 12-month inquiry into the prison systems. The commission follows up the analysis based on its findings with a list of recommendations. Topping the list of needed improvements is better enforcement of inmates’ right to proper health care and limitations on solitary confinement. Five years after the report’s release and despite its detailed and well-researched studies, inmate abuse continues. More recently, news reports from California’s Pelican Bay Prison amplified the need for change, but after the three-week inmate hunger strike ended, the torture of solitary confinement continues nationwide.

  • ‘I feel like I’ve saved a life’: the women clearing Lebanon of cluster bombs

    Only up close does it become clear that some of the bulky figures in armoured vests scouring the fields of southern Lebanon for unexploded cluster bombs are wearing hijabs under their protective helmets.

    Once local teachers, nurses and housewives, this group of women are now fully trained to search for mines and make up the only all-female clearance team in Lebanon, combing the undergrowth inch by inch for the remnants of one of the most indiscriminate weapons of modern warfare.

  • NY judge won’t order Gitmo psychology probe

    New York judge has declined to force an investigation into whether an Army psychologist developed abusive interrogation techniques for Guantánamo Bay detainees and should be stripped of his license.
    The move halted what advocates have called the first court case amid a push to shed light on psychologists’ role in terror suspects’ interrogations.

  • Camila Batmanghelidjh: Caring costs – but so do riots

    My own view is that the police in this country do an impressive job and unjustly carry the consequences of a much wider social dysfunction. Before you take a breath of sarcasm thinking “here she goes, excusing the criminals with some sob story”, I want to begin by stating two things. First, violence and looting can never be justified. Second, for those of us working at street level, we’re not surprised by these events.

    Twitter and Facebook have kept the perverse momentum going, transmitting invitations such as: “Bare shops are gonna get smashed up. So come, get some (free stuff!!!!) F… the feds we will send them back with OUR riot! Dead the ends and colour war for now. So If you see a brother… SALUTE! If you see a fed… SHOOT!”

  • These riots reflect a society run on greed and looting

  • US official: 85% of USAID to Egypt since 25 January went to US organizations

    About 85 percent of USAID’s funds to Egypt since 25 January has gone to US organizations, including the National Democratic Institute and the International Republic Institute, a US official told the Christian Science Monitor.

    The official, whose name the newspaper did not mention, said the money was directed to training programs on practicing politics, and to bolster political parties’ ability to participate effectively in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

• Environment/Energy/Wildlife

  • Shell battles to stem North Sea oil leak

    The company confirmed last night that it had managed to stem the leak from a pipe leading to the Gannet Alpha platform, located 112 miles east of Aberdeen.