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Comment: Re:Why Chemistry? (Score 2) 29

by sombragris (#48093727) Attached to: Nobel Prize In Chemistry Awarded To Trio For Microscope Advancement

I think it's for two reasons: first, because the technique enables to watch molecular processes at the 'single molecule' level, and this is highly significant for chemistry, obviously.

I think there might be a second reason too: the effectiveness of the technique depends on a lot of photochemical knowledge and proper selection of dyes, which again is another significant area of study and research in chemistry.

+ - What do Slashdotters do on long flights? 3

Submitted by gannebraemorr
gannebraemorr (2771431) writes "I’m about to take a long flight (5 hours, then layover, then 7 hours). It will be evening when I land, so I don’t want to sleep too much on the flight. What the heck do I do to pass the time? Battery life and no internet remove the laptop option. I’ve never been a big book reader. I’m not a big fan of exchanging life stories with people I’ll never see again. maybe it would be fun to just make stuff up as your life story."

+ - Samsung Smartwatch Steals Spotlight From Apple's iWatch->

Submitted by jarold
jarold (2974817) writes "The heat is on as Samsung tries to steal spotlight from Apple by planning to launch its own version of iWatch-like smartwatch. This wearable computer, dubbed as Samsung Galaxy Gear, is expected to be unveiled together with Galaxy Note III on September 4, 2013 at Berlin Road Show.

The buzz began when Samsung announced last March that it was developing a watch device. Then, recently, news firm BBC reported a patent and trademark filing that reveals Samsung has registered the names Samsung Gear in South Korea and Samsung Galaxy Gear in the US."

Link to Original Source

+ - NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds"->

Submitted by NettiWelho
NettiWelho (1147351) writes "The Washington Post: The National Security Agency has broken privacy rules or overstepped its legal authority thousands of times each year since Congress granted the agency broad new powers in 2008, according to an internal audit and other top-secret documents.

Link to Original Source

+ - New GMail compose inspires user backlash 1

Submitted by s13g3
s13g3 (110658) writes "Yesterday, Google finally rolled out the "new compose" as a mandatory change to all users, eliminating the "old" compose option with no way to revert. The move has sparked such a significant amount of user backlash on Google's product forums that moderators are having to close hundreds of "I hate the new compose" threads as "duplicates" and are directing people to the main feedback thread, which is currently over 21 pages some 24 hours later. So far, there appears to be nothing in the way of a response or recognition from Google of the amount of hate the change has inspired, only an insistence that somehow the input of "Top Moderators" from their forums since October 2012 resulted in a number of "improvements" to the new compose in response, which supposedly makes it easier to use, but does nothing to address the laundry list of complaints and issues people have with it: simply put, no one likes the new compose, and significant numbers of users are threatening to abandon the service as a result of this forced change."

Comment: Re:Do not want (Score 5, Informative) 173

by sombragris (#42932121) Attached to: GNU Texinfo 5.0 Released

Try pinfo. From the description:

Pinfo is an info file viewer. It was created when the author, Przemek Borys, was very depressed trying to read gtk info entries using the standard tools.

Pinfo is similar in use to lynx. It has similar key movements, and gives similar intuition. You just move across info nodes, and select links, follow them... Well, you know how it is when you view html with lynx. :) It supports as many colors as it could.

Believe me, it's a lifesaver for reading info pages.


What Happened To Diaspora, the Facebook Killer? It's Complicated 215

Posted by Soulskill

+ - Slackware

Submitted by willy everlearn
willy everlearn (82796) writes "Wed Aug 26 10:00:38 CDT 2009
Slackware 13.0 x86_64 is released as stable! Thanks to everyone who
helped make this release possible — see the RELEASE_NOTES for the
credits. The ISOs are off to the replicator. This time it will be a
6 CD-ROM 32-bit set and a dual-sided 32-bit/64-bit x86/x86_64 DVD.
We're taking pre-orders now at store.slackware.com. Please consider
picking up a copy to help support the project. Once again, thanks to
the entire Slackware community for all the help testing and fixing
things and offering suggestions during this development cycle.
As always, have fun and enjoy! -P."

Comment: Re:Let them go after Ubuntu (Score 1) 583

by sombragris (#26768915) Attached to: Microsoft May Be Targeting the Ubuntu Desktop

Oh boy, let's see...

I don't know which Ubuntu you are talking about but the three machines that I run don't have any problems that they wouldn't have under (or because of) Vista. And I can maintain all three free of cost. ... Just because it doesn't fulfill your expectations doesn't mean it's not a good desktop. Windows doesn't fulfill mine ... so what do you say to that?

I ain't saying nothin'. It's the users the ones who are doin' the talkin'. Ubuntu is buggy. Period. The fact that Vista, or any Windows for that regard, might be buggy too, does not invalidate that perception.

Correction: It's a FREE Ferrari that outruns the MS Ferrari at many many occasions and you don't have to buy a special screwdriver for thousands of dollars to open the hood. What is KDE then? A Lamborghini in first gear? Same here, they do a lot of stuff but it has it's problems too.

Don't compare apples to oranges. Compare Ubuntu (a distro, or a complex of distros) to other distros: CentOS, PCLinuxOS, LinuxMint, Mandriva, OpenSUSE, Slackware... you get the idea.

I stand by my point. Putting a slow, buggy distro with a GNOME frontend = big mess. I've seen that before (summoning Red Hat Linux versions from the dead...).

You might get a decent implementation of GNOME on another distro, who knows... (Debian, perhaps?). You might also get a good, stable distro who also happens to be very fast (Vector Linux).

But these two damning factors (GNOME and a slow, buggy linux) are present in Ubuntu and this is a trend that is only going to get worse as far as I can see.

Having that handed out as a flagship Linux desktop is like having a Ferrari in first gear.

btw, want a decent Linux desktop and don't want to use KDE? Great, just use XFce, which is a great desktop too.

So, who is the fanboi here...? ;-)

Comment: Re:Let them go after Ubuntu (Score 1) 583

by sombragris (#26768205) Attached to: Microsoft May Be Targeting the Ubuntu Desktop

That's a good clarification, and was sorely needed after the flames of some less enlightened Ubutu fanbois.

However, I'd like to point out that there are several problems with Kubuntu's implementation of KDE 4.x. You can also check this. Funny thing is, most of the problems people experience with Ubuntu are absent in other distros (e.g., in my box I use Slackware and I haven't seen those horror stories).

That's why I say that Ubuntu is buggy. Ubuntu's QA needs to be better, and the distro layout should be better (i.e., include Flash and Java out of the box, make things stable, and so on).

Ubuntu undoubtedly has potential; but there's something that's killing them. I don't know what it is, but it's making them do releases that are more and more unstable. In this way, they negate whatever advantage they could get. ("Linux? Oh yea, it came in my netbook but I wiped it clean, it never got my screen right and apps crashed every time!").

Comment: How sad. (Score 1) 583

by sombragris (#26768039) Attached to: Microsoft May Be Targeting the Ubuntu Desktop

Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu. Because Ubuntu is slow, buggy, and not a good desktop.
Ubuntu is not the best GNU/Linux distribution. For starters, their quality assurance could be much better, and it is not economical in resource usage. Moreover, it was infected with the "Red Hat" disease of patching everything, introducing more, difficult to track and patch, bugs.

Worse yet, Ubuntu uses by default the GNOME Desktop. It's my personal preference, but I can't stand GNOME, period. It is so aggravating I can't even use it. A GNU/Linux desktop using GNOME is like using a Ferrari car only in first shift. Its vast potential is completely underused.

Therefore, my guess is that Ubuntu is in fact a low-hanging fruit. Let Microsoft go after Ubuntu; meanwhile... KDE will eat their lunch. 4.2 is just the harbinger of things to come and it's that terrific. Period.

That was my comment. I wasn't trolling; I was just expressing my point of view on the subject. How sad that some with mod points thought I was trolling -- obviously they cannot handle dissent.
