The one sticking point is loss of network connectivity. Who has that problem these days anyway? The desktop/notebook PC is usually on a copper LAN with a connection to the Internet. The small cheap computer is usually only used when in range of a wifi or wireless network. Further, NFS mounted hard just keeps trying after an interruption of connectivity so a brief interruption is no problem at all as long as the machines are not powered down. The “little woman” uses this all the time for our local cloud. See the Linux man page or read about SSHFS.
While the Linux kernel is constantly improving, it cannot yet be built as C11 code.
With this commit to mainline Linux git this weekend for Linux 3.18, the GNU89 C standard is now explicitly set.
Mesa 10.4 was branched from Git master this weekend and that means the next Mesa release features only OpenGL 3.3 compliance and not OpenGL 4.0~4.2 as many had hoped.
Those with Qualcomm Adreno A4xx series graphics hardware, the open-source 3D support is coming along nicely.
Digital streams almost totally command my music listening these days. Over the years I have amassed a large collection of CDs at considerable expense; most of them now sit neglected gathering dust. Almost all music streaming services fall short of the audio quality of CDs, but their popularity has more to do with sheer convenience than high-fidelity sound reproduction. Music streaming has not only been to the detriment of CD sales; digital downloads have also experienced a slowing down of sales. This is only set to continue. Audiophiles may be tempted to embrace music streaming given that there are now services such as Tidal which offers high fidelity music streaming, 25 million tracks encoded with the FLAC format streamed at 1,411kbps.
This War of Mine is a different kind of war game, where you take command of a group of civilians struggling to survive in a besieged city. The uniqueness of the game comes from the fact that rather controlling military soldiers, you will embark on protecting and keeping alive civilians in a time of war.
Urban Terror is a free first-person shooter taking place in realistic environments, but with a Hollywood-style gameplay, allowing sliding, walljumps and trickjumps, with tens of beautiful maps, dozens of weapons to choose from and game modes like CTF, Survivor, TDM or Freeze Tag.
Running With Scissors has announced that they are developing POSTAL: REDUX as a re-done version of Postal 1.
Xfce 4.12 remains out of sight but Xfdesktop 4.10.3 was released today.
The 4.10.3 release to the Xfce desktop manager (Xfdesktop) was released but it's not overly exciting. The Xfdesktop 4.10.3 stable release features a number of bug-fixes, translation updates, and other minor items.
Wayland fan and Phoronix reader "Nerdopolis" has released updated versions of his Wayland Live CD for showcasing Wayland technologies in various forms.
The Wayland Live CD distribution, Rebecca Black OS, saw a major update last month with a lot of new functionality -- check out that article if you haven't already for the details. This weekend's Rebecca Black OS update just brings various bug-fixes.
While no imminent switch is planned, Red Hat's Fedora Linux distribution in a few releases may move away from Mozilla Firefox as the default web browser.
Nothing is set in stone right now, but around Fedora 23 to 25 is when there might be a browser shake-up in the Fedora camp. The new default web browser isn't looking to be Google's Chromium as a lot of people might be guessing now, but rather the GNOME Web Browser -- Epiphany.
While I am a Fedora user, there is only Linux distro that I suggest to people -- Linux Mint. Why? Well, it is a very easy-to-use operating system, and for people coming from Windows, it can look rather familiar. The people behind Mint are very accommodating too; they actually listen to users! Since it is based on Ubuntu, there are tons of packages available, for which you can use the popular APT package manager when needed. Today, a release candidate (RC) of Linux Mint 17.1 'Rebecca' becomes available -- download it now.
Timesys announced LinuxLink support for the Cortex-A9 based Renesas RZ/A SoC and RSK HDK. Renesas also tipped an RZ/A-based board for ARM Mbed development.
A developer saddened by the poor state of the Opera web-browser on Linux has taken to writing his open-source web browser that carries the best features from Opera.
Back in January I wrote about a Qt5-powered web browser inspired by Opera after an open-source developer was disappointed in the sad state of Opera's Linux affairs. Now another developer has taken to a similar agenda to relive his Opera memories. Lauri Kasanen, who some will recognize as being a contributor to Mesa and focusing on the Radeon Linux driver, has taken to writing his own browser.
Firefox Developer Edition is replacing the Aurora channel, which previously was the first Firefox version to get the latest changes. For now, the latest version available is Firefox Developer Edition 35 Alpha 2.
I'm delighted to announce version 2.10 of GNU hello. See below for changes in this version.
Indian government software applications are set to make the shift to open source, potentially boosting the pace at which such programmes are developed, and leading to millions of dollars in savings by moving away from proprietary systems.
The government is readying a policy that calls for open source software to be used as part of the Digital India initiative. The government is also planning to create a Github-like repository of software that can be collaboratively developed.
One hundred passengers whizzed along a 42.8km (27 mile) route between the cities of Uenohara and Fuefuki, reaching speeds of up to 500km/h (311mph), The Asahi Shimbun website reports. The Central Japan Railway Company is running eight days of testing for the experimental maglev Shinkansen train on its test track in Yamanashi Prefecture. In total, 2,400 people will take part in the tests after winning tickets in a raffle. They represent a lucky minority - there had been more than 100 times that number of applications, the report says. "I applied for my nephew who is a big railway fan, but now I am more excited than he is," one passenger, who was travelling with his parents and two young nephews, tells the website.
Forty-seven million years ago, a pregnant mare and its unborn foal lost their lives, perhaps chased into a lake, where they drowned. Where they died, however, was a stroke of luck for 21st century paleontologists. Their fossilized remains were discovered in the Messel Pit, a former coal and oil shale mine near Frankfurt, Germany, that is famous for its exquisitely preserved fossils. The mare and her fetus are now giving scientists an unprecedented glimpse into the anatomy and reproduction of this early horse species, Eurohippus messelensis. Like other early horses, the mare was small, only about the size of a fox terrier, says Jens Franzen, a paleontologist at the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum in Frankfurt, who presented the prepared fossil for the first time yesterday at the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology annual meeting here.
Dutch authorities said on Sunday they had found a highly contagious strain of bird flu at a poultry farm in the central Netherlands and set about destroying 150,000 chickens.
The strain, H5N8, has never been detected in humans, but an outbreak in South Korea meant millions of farm birds had to be slaughtered to contain the outbreak. Cases have also been reported in China and Japan, although the strain was first reported in Europe, on a German farm, in early November.
A technology adapted from a U.S. military “smoke alarm for gunfire” was installed recently in a Massachusetts school, a protective measure implemented weeks after a deadly high school shooting in Washington State.
Congratulations, America. A defense contractor tried to sell you on the idea that our schools are war zones and you bit like a musky on a minnow. The manufacturer's website, along with most of the accompanying news articles, are filled with statistics all about how school and mass shootings are on the rise. Obviously this serves as evidence that such shooter detection systems are needed. That way, the $100k per school systems can alert authorities when these increasingly common shootings occur. The most common figure you'll hear from these contractors and in the news is the same one authorities used in buying this detection system: there have been 88 school shootings in America since the Sandy Hook tragedy in 2012. The claim comes from Everytown.org, an organization dedicated to gun control and safety. And if that statistic sounds shocking to you, there's a very good reason for that: it's complete bullshit.
The CIA currently vets and trains about 400 fighters a month, the same number expected to be trained by the Pentagon when its program reaches capacity by late next year, The Post reported.
The period in question is the end of World War II until the Kennedy administration was, to say the least, formative and what happened then is clearly relevant to the circumstances in which the United States finds itself now.
Current tensions foreshadowed in the 1950’s include the U.S. approach to the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio, unrest in cornerstone Egypt, monarchic rule in Saudi Arabia, and perhaps most important of all, the role of Persian, Shiite Muslim Iran in the region.
He said the CIA and military started working together after 9/11. Before that, there was little partnership between the two. Because of budget cuts, both are at risk of losing the progress they have made, said Oakley (pictured), who is working on his doctorate in security studies from Kansas State University.
Incoming intel committee chair Richard Burr will end any hope of holding out of control spy agencies accountable.
He compared the Obama administration to that of Lyndon Johnson, who personally chose military targets in the Vietnam war. “It was the micromanagement that drove me crazy,” Gates said. The former defence chief said that Obama's administration stands in contrast to both Bush administrations, where once a decision was made, there was no micromanagement.
A German diplomat working in Moscow has been expelled, a German government official said, shortly after a Russian diplomat working in Bonn was expelled amid media reports he was a spy.
"We regret this unjustified action and expressed that to the Russian government," a German official said in a statement late on Saturday after Der Spiegel magazine reported the German was expelled in retaliation for the Russian's explusion.
After helicoptering to the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, assaulting the house and killing three men and a woman, some of the Seals reached the third floor, where a CIA analyst had told O’Neill that Bin Laden would be. O’Neill followed an unnamed point man into Bin Laden’s bedroom, he told the AP, and the point man tackled two women, believing they had a bomb, in what O’Neill calls an incredibly selfless act.
...Reagan administration had illegally aided a stateless army known as the Contras in Central America.
Hunted by the CIA, he was captured by the military in Bolivia on October 8, 1967, and executed the following day.
Thirteen years post-9/11, out-of-control violence replaced regional stability. Prospects ahead look worse, not better.
But the primary thing the U.S. government does is wage wars, and it wages them against other people who had no say in the matter. Of course I don’t want wars waged against Americans either, but the general impression one gets from traveling around and speaking and answering questions at public events in the United States is not so much that people are indifferent to the destruction of the globe as long as they don’t miss their favorite television show, as that people are unclear on what destruction means and can’t identify a globe when it’s placed in a lineup with six watermelons.
The US has also faced criticism from Turkey and Gulf states because of its focus on fighting Islamist militias rather than Assad.
In a documentary The World According to Dick Cheney,” Dick Cheney then Vice-President of the USA admits that it was he and not President Bush who ordered the shooting down of the plane that fell into a field in Pennsylvania in September 2001. He also admits that he falsely linked Iraq with 9/11 and influenced Justice Department to legalize torture. He admits too that he used 9/11 to enable spying on Americans, start the Afghan and Iraq war and the ‘war on terror’ which were all planned before 9/11 which in other words has to leave us to deduce that 9/11 itself was pre-planned as well!
The Constitution strongly disfavors war except in self-defense because it bloats executive power, cripples liberty, celebrates secrecy and risks blowback. Mr. Obama’s current war against IS is many things, but it is not self-defense. The tighter the limits of any new AUMF, the less the U.S. Constitution will be wrenched and challenged.
The persecution of Julian Assange must end. Even the British government clearly believes it must end. On 28 October, the deputy foreign minister, Hugo Swire, told Parliament he would “actively welcome” the Swedish prosecutor in London and “we would do absolutely everything to facilitate that.” The tone was impatient.
The BBC4 show, called Asylum, is described as "a satirical comedy about a government whistle-blower and a millionaire internet entrepreneur trapped together in a London embassy".
The comedy is one of a string of shows created to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta which was one of the first attempts to limit the powers of the monarchy and develop a functioning legal system and parliamentary democracy.
Dozens of celebrities, including musicians, filmmakers, actors and intellectuals have signed their names to a statement of support published Monday to show solidarity for Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and Jeremy Hammond.
It also comes at a moment where the US government is perceived to be taking a particularly aggressive approach to official leakers. Including Snowden and Manning, there have been a total of eight prosecutions by the Obama administration relating to leaks under the 1917 Espionage Act – more than those that were brought by all previous presidents combined.
[...]
The list of those who have backed the whistleblower statement also includes movie directors Alfonso Cuarón, Terry Gilliam and Ken Loach; musicians Robbie Charter of the Avalanches, PJ Harvey and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth; and writers Roddy Doyle and Hanif Kureishi.
ON NOVEMBER 25th, fracking experts from across the continent will convene in Warsaw for the Shale Gas World Europe conference. The gathering is a reminder of the heady days, just a few years back, when the Polish government promised to wean the country from dependence on Russian fossil fuels by imitating America's successful exploitation of shale. Poland would become "a second Norway”, as Radek Sikorski, the former foreign minister, put it in 2010. All that was needed was to open the country to foreign drilling firms, set up a regulatory and profit-sharing structure, open the taps, and watch the methane (and the dollars) flow.
[...]
Perversely, Moscow may now hold the key to galvanising the Polish shale industry. While Russian gas continues to flow cheaply, exploring for Polish shale gas is risky and expensive. But with the risk of renewed military conflict in Ukraine rising, the situation could change. “There is certainly gas in Poland, but is the current system able to extract it? I don’t think so.” says Grzegorz Pytel, an energy expert with the Sobieski Institute, a think tank. “However, if Russia cuts off gas exports that would revive shale. The hope is in Moscow.” Shale enthusiasts who once hoped to free Poland from Russian gas have been reduced to hoping that Russia will turn off the gas, or raise prices sharply, to make Polish shale viable.
Many know Western Union as the world’s largest personal monetary transfer corporation, founded way back in 1851. Operating in 220 countries worldwide, it generated almost $800M last year in net income, which is down over 20% from 2012. I wonder why it is down over $200M all of the sudden?
Report by charity criticises ‘head in the sand’ policy on benefit sanctions as being behind significant increase in food poverty
With tape symbolically strapped over their mouths, and holding signs demanding "stop the illegal threats," dozens of workers on Thursday sat down amid the cash registers and merchandise racks of a Los Angeles Walmart store, in the first such work action to target the world's biggest retailer.
British internet service providers have been accused of rushing into an ill-thought-out attempt to block political material online, after agreeing with the government on a system of filters for websites espousing extremist views.
The four largest ISPs have independently agreed with the government to implement a system of blocks, similar to that used to keep child abuse material off the net. But civil liberties campaigners expressed fears that the move opened up a risk of political censorship.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, said: “We need transparency whenever political content is blocked, even when we are talking about websites that espouse extremist views. The government must be clear about what sites they think should be blocked, why they are blocking them and whether there will be redress for site owners who believe that their website has been blocked incorrectly.”
Back in October, we wrote about the appeal on the legality of National Security Letters (NSLs), which are secretive filings from law enforcement demanding information with a perpetual gag order. In 2013, a district court had declared that NSLs were unconstitutional, but stayed that decision pending appeal. While the appeals court judges seemed skeptical, it still wasn't clear how they would rule. So it's interesting to see that the Justice Department has just admitted that it misled the court on some rather important points during the oral arguments.
A court filing unsealed late Wednesday shows that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) made a highly misleading argument to an appeals court in October during a hearing on the constitutionality of National Security Letters (NSLs).
Yet Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) — the two leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee — have both expressed reservations, worrying that it would go too far.
Data retention is a hot topic, so much so that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights has included several pages examining the proposed legislation in its fifteenth report of the 44th Parliament. Suggestions put forward are that TIA Amendment Data Retention bill invades privacy, doesn’t properly define data, goes too far and needs further amendment.
Facebook lets its users control whether other people can see the information they post, but when it comes to controlling what Facebook itself gets to see, privacy-conscious users are out of luck.
We learned last week that GCHQ – the U.K. equivalent of the NSA – permits its employees to target the communications of journalists and lawyers. That revelation has serious implications for the work of both groups.
Street lighting has always been a form of social control. As ‘smart’ lamp-posts start to adapt to our needs, are we entering a brave new world of big city lights?
Reports that GCHQ snooped on other countries at two climate summits will be investigated, says UN secretary general
The fascinating background of being the only U.S. ambassador expelled during the global WikiLeaks scandal will be a large part of her presentation to the Nov. 16 Millennium Salon set for East Shore Unitarian Universalist Church in Kirtland. The salon, part of the church’s social justice committee, presents topics that examine various issues and discuss their impact on society.
Human rights committee finds the plan to retain data for two years could have a ‘chilling effect’ on journalists
While such data breaches are lamentable, it is a bit ironic that an agency that has been carrying out an extensive secret surveillance operation for years would be so vigorous in its vendetta against the alleged hackers who exposed sensitive data of employees and customers.
It's Monday morning and you're preparing your first cup of coffee when the tanks roll into your neighborhood. Phone lines are cut, curfew is activated and doors are broken down.
You sigh. It's another "cleanout day" in the not-too-distant future.
The War on Terror has infiltrated every layer of society. Internet sites track the spread of extremism like the CDC tracks a lethal virus. The threat is pandemic and online news sources agree: In order to keep you safe, weekly cleanout campaigns must ramp up all across the nation – yet again.
Today you just happen to be in the red zone.
The main annoyance about being in a red zone is usually the loss of your phone signal. But today is different.
AT&T Mobility, the nation's second-largest cellular provider, says it's no longer attaching hidden Internet tracking codes to data transmitted from its users' smartphones. The practice made it nearly impossible to shield its subscribers' identities online.
Never has the long shadow of America across the world been so ominous and so ephemeral as it is in the wake of Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations and Wikileaks. Data surveillance and the huge US presence in the tech and internet worlds have contributed to a sense of America as the omnipresent, unseen superpower in a way that no world leading country has ever been before.
This ownership of the web is what lets the US suggest, with no apparent sense of irony, that people like Julian Assange, an Australian citizen, are “traitors”, though what patriotism or loyalty they owe a country they have nothing to do with is unclear.
It is this long shadow that Peter Carey takes to task in his hacker conspiracy thriller Amnesia.
US government-owned airplanes that can cover most of the continental United States are covertly flying around the country, spying on tens of thousands of innocent people’s cellphones. It sounds like a movie plot, but in a remarkable report published on Thursday, the Wall Street Journal exposed that these spy planes are part of an actual mass surveillance program overseen by the Justice Department (DOJ). And it’s been kept secret from the public for years.
When the Republicans were last in control of Congress, a variety of flawed, big-government policies were foisted onto the public. In the cloud of fear following the 9/11 attacks, Republicans rammed the USA PATRIOT Act through both chambers without reading it, strengthening the foundation of today’s surveillance and police state in which liberty, privacy, and security have been substantially eroded in the name of “fighting terror.”
Williams has long been critical of polygraph tests, criticizing inaccurate and unreliable results. Teaching people how to pass the tests since 1979, he has become the target of the federal government due to specifically marketing his services to people taking the examinations for reasons such as federal law enforcement employment, background investigations, and those on parole or probation.
Normally, of course, the CIA only competes in foreign elections.
Outgoing Democratic Sen. Mark Udall is reportedly considering “all options” to reveal the long-concealed CIA torture report, including reading the entire classified report on the Senate floor.
A new Texas bill up for consideration in 2015 would make indefinite detention, as purportedly authorized by the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a criminal act subject to penalties in Texas.
ââ¬â¹The publication this week of a 1964 letter sent by the FBI to Martin Luther King in which he’s urged to commit suicide reveals never-before-seen details about the government’s campaign to sabotage the civil rights leader.
Today marks an extraordinary two years in which the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) has been considering, and so far failing even to start, an investigation into South Yorkshire police’s own referral of its conduct during and after the notorious battle at Orgreave during the miners’ strike. Members of the Orgreave Truth and Justice Campaign are marching on the IPCC’s offices in Holborn to “express anger and dismay” that so much time has run away with no firm action by the IPCC.
This is outrageous. On September 10, 22-year-old Darrien Hunt was shot in the back six times and killed by police in Saratoga Springs, Utah.
In 2002, the American Psychological Association (APA) revised its code of ethics to allow practitioners to follow the “governing legal authority” in situations that seemed at odds with their duties as health professionals. Many argue that the revision, as well as a task force report in 2005 that affirmed that the code allowed psychologists to participate in national security interrogations, gave the Bush administration critical legal cover for torture.
Let’s take three of the many issues the ACLU raised for this review. First, accountability for torture committed under the Bush administration. Committee members found U.S. responses on accountability and remedies for the “some folks” we tortured was wholly inadequate.
Banning suspected fighters from returning to the UK from Syria unless they agree to strict controls elevates the power of ‘suspicion’ over the rule of law
Sterilisation camps for women seen as cheaper option than contraceptives in remote villages, while incentives for surgery condemned as coercion by legal experts
Two days after AT&T claimed it has to "pause" a 100-city fiber build because of uncertainty over network neutrality rules, the Federal Communications Commission today asked the company to finally detail its vague plans for fiber construction.
Admins and uploaders know the risks, but when otherwise good citizens go to jail for sharing files it's a horrible moment for all involved. This week two young men from the UK were locked up for years, one for his acts as a teenager several years ago. What a complete and utter waste of life.
Dotcom has been using Mega to share his first music album “Good Times” with everyone who wants to give it a spin. While he holds all the rights, several prominent music labels kept informing Mega that the album was “infringing.”
A few weeks ago we learned that the takedown requests were all inaccurate, and triggered by a prankster. However, that apparently didn’t stop them from coming in and as a result Dotcom has now had his Mega account terminated for repeatedly violating the terms of service.
Rightscorp, a prominent piracy monitoring firm that sends settlement requests for Warner Bros. and other copyright holders, may soon go out of business. The publicly listed company is losing millions of dollars per year and says it desperately needs a fresh cash injection to survive.