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Comment Re:Why can plugins crash the browser anyway? (Score 1) 771

I was coming here to post the same thing. I've never had flash crash firefox. The firefox flash plug in runs as a seperate process called npviewer.bin. Maybe other browsers handle it different, but I severely doubt it. I was looking at that sentence and thinking "Oh, I'm a linux user, I know all about flash crashing..."
First Person Shooters (Games)

The Duke Is Finally Back, For Real 309

After the first announcement on 1997-04-27 and over eleven years of fresh start after fresh start, Duke Nukem Forever finally comes to your system. At least if your system is an Xbox 360. Jon Siegler, the webmaster of 3D Realms, confirms this on their site: "As has been reported around the net today, we can confirm that the game has indeed passed final certification with Microsoft on Friday the 15th of August (on our first try, no less). That means the game is done — it is now in the hands of Microsoft." Update: 08/19 10:47 GMT by T : Several readers have written with a correction: this announcement is actually about Duke Nukem 3D, rather than Duke Nukem Forever.
Linux

Hardy Heron Making Linux Ready for the Masses? 1100

desmondhaynes writes "Is Linux ready for the masses? Is Linux really being targeted towards the 'casual computer user'? Computerworld thinks we're getting there, talking of Linux 'going mainstream 'with Ubuntu. 'If there is a single complaint that is laid at the feet of Linux time and time again, it's that the operating system is too complicated and arcane for casual computer users to tolerate. You can't ask newbies to install device drivers or recompile the kernel, naysayers argue. Of course, many of those criticisms date back to the bad old days, but Ubuntu, the user-friendly distribution sponsored by Mark Shuttleworth's Canonical Ltd., has made a mission out of dispelling such complaints entirely.'"
Software

Ubuntu 8.04 Beta Released 214

markybob writes "Ubuntu Hardy 8.04 beta has been released. It features GNOME 2.22 and uses Linux kernel 2.6.24. Furthermore, it uses Firefox 3 beta 4, and PulseAudio is enabled by default. To ease the transition of Windows users, it includes Wubi, which allows users to install and uninstall Ubuntu like any other Windows application. It does not require a dedicated partition, nor does it affect the existing bootloader, yet users can experience a dual-boot setup almost identical to a full installation."
User Journal

Journal Journal: The dark side of Open Source

However, this shows us a dark side of open source software, which is that most of it clones existing software. OpenOffice is a Microsoft Office clone, InfraRecorder clones Nero, Linux clones UNIX, certain text editors that wont be named clone their commercial variants. The problem I have with this is that doing for software what Nero did to CD-burning should reward those who do it, or were going to see fewer people wanting to do it.

Space

Submission + - Japan launches lunar orbiter mission Friday

Sooner Boomer writes: "Japan launched its first lunar probe on Friday, nicknamed Kaguya after a fairy-tale princess, in the latest move in a new race with China, India and the United States to explore the moon. The rocket carrying the three-metric ton orbiter took off into blue skies, leaving a huge trail of vapor over the tiny island of Tanegashima, about 1,000 km (620 miles) south of Tokyo, at 10:31 a.m. (9:31 p.m. EDT) as it headed out over the Pacific Ocean. The mission consists of a main orbiter and two baby satellites equipped with 14 observation instruments designed to examine surface terrain, gravity and other features for clues on the origin and evolution of the moon. Read the article or see Japanese Space Agency home page (in English) China has plans to launch an orbiter later this year, with unmaanned rover lander mission scheduled for 2010. India and the US also have orbiter missions scheduled for next year."
Republicans

Submission + - Ted Stevens' Home Raided

el_munkie writes: It appears that the home of Senator Ted Stevens is in the process of being raided by the FBI and the IRS. According to the article, a remodeling project at Stevens' home and the involvement of Veco, an oil company, are the focus of the raid.
Communications

Submission + - Are Mobile Phone Masts Responsible For Illness?

drewmoney writes: According to a major UK study, symptoms of illness caused by mobile phone masts is "all in the mind".

Excerpts from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6914492.stm

Dozens of people who believed the masts triggered symptoms such as anxiety, nausea and tiredness could not detect if signals were on or off in trials.

However, the Environmental Health Perspectives study stressed people were nonetheless suffering "real symptoms".

Campaign group Mast Sanity "http://www.mastsanity.org/" said the results were skewed as 12 people in the trials dropped out because of illness.
Upgrades

Submission + - Replacing Silicone with Pencil Graphite

Late-Eight writes: "A key discovery at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute could help advance the role of graphene as a possible heir to copper and silicon in nanoelectronics. Researchers believe graphene's extremely efficient conductive properties can be exploited for use in nanoelectronics.

Graphene, a one-atom-thick sheet of carbon, eluded scientists for years but was finally made in the laboratory in 2004 with the help of everyday, store-bough items. This research is an important first step, For developing a way to mass produce metallic graphene that could one day replace copper as the primary interconnect material on nearly all computer chips."
AMD

Submission + - AMD Announces Release Date for Barcelona in Q3 (yahoo.com)

An anonymous reader writes: Rumors said the release wouldn't be until late Q4 but an August ship date is now promised. They're only releasing up to 2.0 GHz processors at first, with the top speed devices coming out later in the year.
Bug

Submission + - Vista Security Claims Debunked (seclists.org)

[Send Bug Reports Here] writes: "Apparently Microsoft still hasn't learned that counting vendor acknowledged vulnerabilities isn't a good way to establish the security of an OS. As an analysis of Microsoft's claims on Full Disclosure shows, we see that the methodology used was badly flawed. A bug in Firefox (not to mention emacs), counts as a flaw for Linux, while IE bugs get ignored on Vista's chart. Then we see that vulnerabilities aren't vulnerabilities when they're security-challenged features such as Vista's Teredo. Also, there's far too little consideration given to severity, given that it stoops to counting even extra access restrictions on a file in OSX to have something to show. In short, the original Microsoft analysis was good PR and poor research."
Security

Submission + - CIA Declassifies the "Family Jewels"

An anonymous reader writes: The CIA has recently declassified some records relating to illegal spying, assassination attempts, and other goodies for afternoon reading. These are available from the CIA's FOIA portal
From the article:
Last week, CIA chief Michael Hayden announced the decision to declassify the records, saying the documents were "unflattering but part of CIA history".
The documents detail assassination plots, domestic spying, wiretapping, and kidnapping.
The incidents include:
* the confinement of a Soviet KGB defector, Yuriy Ivanovich Nosenko, in the mid-1960s
* attempts to use a suspected Mafia mobster, Johnny Roselli, in a plot to assassinate Cuba's Fidel Castro
* the wiretapping and surveillance of journalists, including in 1972 columnist Jack Anderson who broke a string of scandals
Censorship

Submission + - Bloody hard to run a blog in Sweden

mpawlo writes: "Swedish media today reports that Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt is being investigated by a prosecutor because of his blog. In a blog post, Mr Bildt states that some 13.000 comments are posted on his blog and that he and his staff try to erase all inapproriate comments. However, in the comment being investigated, genocide of palestinians has been proposed. This comment was not erased, which prompted a Swedish leftist blogger to report the conservative foreign minister's blog and the comment to the authorities. Now a prosecutor is looking into the blog and the foreign minister will likely be held responsible for the comments due to poor Swedish legislation on freedom of speech in relation to the Internet.

Mr Bildt has been in the digital frontline for many years. As the prime minister of Sweden, he sent email to president Clinton, thus becoming the first national leader to use email to communicate with another national leader. He has been adviser to ICANN and has now recently been the first foreign minister to blog extensively. It would be very sad to see him limit his efforts just because it is bloody hard to run a blog with comments in Sweden."

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