Recent Posts

1051

General Software Discussion / Re: Keyboard shortcut of the day

« Last post by Edvard on December 08, 2012, 02:47 PM »

On Linux, Ctrl-Alt-Backspace would kill X and drop you to terminal mode.  Real handy when it hung or something graphical was eating memory and the mouse pointer went AWOL.
Ubuntu did away with that when they first rolled out "bulletproof X" so it just restarted X.  Not the same function, but still handy especially if you were using a session manager, because it forced a re-login.  
Now it does nothing, even in Debian, and I haven't been inspired enough to go digging for reasons.  

1052

General Software Discussion / Re: Circumventing UEFI/SecureBoot on a new PC

« Last post by Edvard on December 07, 2012, 09:01 PM »

 

1053

Living Room / Re: Security, Law, Ego, and Patheticness

« Last post by Edvard on December 07, 2012, 02:00 AM »

In more on-topic news, John McAfee has suffered a heart attack (or reasonable facsimile) and is applying to Guatemala for asylum.  Apparently he's genuinely afraid of the Belizean government:
http://abcnews.go.co...7890926#.UMGg9CGZP80

1054

General Software Discussion / Re: Circumventing UEFI/SecureBoot on a new PC

« Last post by Edvard on December 06, 2012, 01:56 PM »

Very nice. My kudos to Mr. Smith for going through the trouble for us.  What's even more evil about the whole situation is that it was not sold as a UEFI-enabled machine (although with Win8 installed, should be a given...), thereby taking the user unsuspected.

Former Red Hat dev Matthew Garret has come up with an alternate way that's even more involved, but does allow key signing for unknown operating systems:
http://www.zdnet.com...00008246/?s_cid=e539
Mind you, the actual signed part is not open source and includes Microsoft's signature, and so, from what I gather, it is actually following Microsoft's Secure Boot implementation specs; that is, it's not so much circumvention as it is creative compliance.

Mr. Garrett's original report here: http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/20303.html

So until MS gets over stalling for time until it can get Win8 into some semblance of market saturation (or at least that's my take on the situation), we soldier on...

1055

Living Room / Re: Security, Law, Ego, and Patheticness

« Last post by Edvard on December 06, 2012, 07:54 AM »

Doesn't Right-click -> Properties show metadata?

XnView works pretty good, and XnViewMP can show the rating info as well:
http://newsgroup.xnv...php?f=35&t=24210

1056

Living Room / Re: 3D Printing Under Attack

« Last post by Edvard on December 05, 2012, 06:17 PM »

What they need to do is load some JB Weld into the thing.  That stuff should be the 3rd in a trinity with Duct Tape and WD-40.

Also... this: http://www.popsci.co...-now-stainless-steel

1057

General Software Discussion / Re: need to create a basic floor plan

« Last post by Edvard on December 05, 2012, 06:02 PM »

Hey, that's a pretty nifty Schematic app there.  I've used PCB123 for schematics before, but the output is weird when running through Wine on Linux. 
I'll give this one a try. 

1058

General Software Discussion / Re: Cool Planetarium Software

« Last post by Edvard on December 05, 2012, 05:53 PM »

Tried both of these a while ago, Celestia had a bit of a learning curve, but one trip the help file and it was easy to get used to.  Stellarium was nicer to look at, but was a bit slow on my old box.  Was it Celestia that you could create your own orbiting objects and track them?  I'd like to see Superman orbiting reverse the Earth orbit at 10x the speed, or perhaps a randomly appearing sperm whale and bowl of petunias...  

1059

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on December 05, 2012, 05:39 PM »

Yes, making off-time sound perfectly natural, that's something to behold.
In the rock/metal world, I've only heard Led Zeppelin, Soundgarden, Drive Like Jehu and Mnemic pull it off effortlessly.  Everyone else it sounded gimmicky, like they were very deliberately counting out that guess-my-time-signature with the riff rather than just letting it flow.
Nice to be reminded again how it's done.  

1060

Living Room / Re: Warp field mechanics 101

« Last post by Edvard on December 05, 2012, 12:38 PM »

"John O'Connor! Install my Overthruster!!" 

1061

General Software Discussion / Re: A month with my Surface RT

« Last post by Edvard on December 01, 2012, 06:19 PM »

Every once in a while, I will come across a website or application that, for some strange reason, I feel compelled to touch the controls rather than mouse them.  It's actually a strange feeling.
Thing is, I've never used Win8, never had a tablet device nor a touchscreen phone.  Where did I get this compulsion?  Dunno, maybe it's actually a very natural action that's only now being exploited in computer UIs (touch screens have been around for a very long time, I'm aware, just not on such a level of exposure), but we've all trained ourselves to use keyboard + mouse, so it doesn't seem "right" at first.
Personally, I'm looking forward to the day when the mouse is obsolete, but I still believe we've got a ways to go...

1062

General Software Discussion / Re: removing all the touch-oriented features of Windows 8

« Last post by Edvard on November 29, 2012, 02:26 PM »

Maybe this situation with Windows 8 could turn out to be a new opportunity for the alternative shell scene (what's left of it, that is). 
Quick google search implies nobody's tried Win8 + Litestep or Blackbox.
Time will tell...

1063

Living Room / Re: Animal Friends thread

« Last post by Edvard on November 29, 2012, 02:11 PM »

I like cats, and I like owls.
Two great tastes that go together...

Mouser posted the first part here:
https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=26750.0

But wait! There's more!:

 

1064

Living Room / Re: Recommend some music videos to me!

« Last post by Edvard on November 28, 2012, 06:47 PM »

OK, now for something a little different...

How about a video about music?

This is a subject I'd pondered many times after reading the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, when some reference was made about "all the possible songs having been already written" or something along that line.

1065

General Software Discussion / Re: Windows "Blue"

« Last post by Edvard on November 28, 2012, 06:15 PM »

So, Microsoft embracing the idea of Rolling Release^w?
Pull!

1066

Living Room / Re: Post Your Funny Videos Here [NSFW]

« Last post by Edvard on November 28, 2012, 05:41 PM »

^ That was epic. Damn epic.

1067

Living Room / Re: Micro Men (BBC, 2009) - Docufiction on English micro informatic pioneers

« Last post by Edvard on November 25, 2012, 05:36 PM »

Very cool find.  Will watch at home later. 
I often wondered what happened to Sinclair, especially since they had some very cool things going on in the '80s (first time I ever saw multi-tasking with separate "windows") that apparently didn't make it to the states except for that pocket calculator on steroids called the Timex-Sinclair.
I guess now I'll find out...

1068

Living Room / Re: Building a computer from the ground up - Nand2Tetris

« Last post by Edvard on November 25, 2012, 01:55 AM »

Watch the video, it explains a little more:

1069

Living Room / Re: World's oldest still working digital computer gets rebooted

« Last post by Edvard on November 24, 2012, 02:56 PM »

Nice to see hope still springs eternal.

-40Hz

Yes, it is.  For living evidence, check out the Nand2Tetris project: https://www.donation...ex.php?topic=32988.0

1070

Living Room / Building a computer from the ground up - Nand2Tetris

« Last post by Edvard on November 24, 2012, 02:52 PM »

The site contains all the software tools and project materials necessary to build a general-purpose computer system from the ground up. We also provide a set of lectures designed to support a typical course on the subject.

The materials are aimed at students, instructors, and self-learners. Everything is free and open-source; as long as you operate in a non-profit educational setting, you are welcome to modify and use our materials as you see fit.

The NAND gate is used as the basis to build a chipset.
The chipset is used as the basis to build a hardware platform.
The hardware platform is used as the basis to build an assembler.
The assembler is used as the basis to build a  virtual machine.
The virtual machine is used as the basis to build an operating system.
The operating system is used as the basis to build a compiler.
The compiler is used as the basis to build Tetris.

All this in a single semester.

http://www.nand2tetris.org/

So much awesome, so little time...  

from a video I saw somehrrs

1071

Living Room / Retro educational videos

« Last post by Edvard on November 24, 2012, 02:42 PM »

A free and fun way to support your K-12 classroom or homeschool curriculum using time-proven Educational Films, Newsreels, TV Shows, PSAs, and Movies from the past.

http://www.tvschoolhouse.com/

All this stuff is probably more educational towards history and cultural studies, but my generation was on the tail end of this kind of stuff.
Smells like second grade...


from the intahnet

1072

Living Room / Re: Linux users targeted by mystery drive-by rootkit

« Last post by Edvard on November 24, 2012, 01:14 AM »

Well, if it was me - it ain't - I'd test on a small sample, see how things work, then adapt and magnify

Judging by the details reported on, that may be exactly what's happening.  Debian proper is just generic enough to leave room for adaptation.

1073

Living Room / Linux users targeted by mystery drive-by rootkit

« Last post by Edvard on November 24, 2012, 12:06 AM »

The malware is aimed at the 64-bit Debian Squeezy kernel and is distributed to would-be victims via an unusual form of iFrame injection attack

https://www.infoworl...nterprise_2012-11-21

Article says it looks so far like a work-in-progress, but just a reminder that we Linux users are not and never will be completely immune.
Stumps me why they chose Debian Squeeze, why not Ubuntu for the newb user base?  Why not Red Hat for all the delicious server exploit possibilities?
... And Bronx cheers to Infoworld for getting the distro name wrong (Squeezy? Really? Research much?)

from sumwhar ah ferget
Rootkit Icon by ? http://thethreatvect...s-cybersecurity-101/

1074

Living Room / Re: World's oldest still working digital computer gets rebooted

« Last post by Edvard on November 23, 2012, 11:40 PM »

1075

General Software Discussion / Re: Waterfox has now been accepted as a Mozilla project

« Last post by Edvard on November 22, 2012, 08:10 PM »

Onward it is!! (though I do recommend Nightly)