I'm just glad they're putting any work into the console at all. syscons is really dated, sadly and this will set up FreeBSD for bigger and better. I'm seeing a HUGE surge in interest in the BSDs suddenly, and not just because of systemd (watch out, because the FreeBSD team isn't necessarily averse to something like systemd, although probably not systemd itself). I think all the recent cruftiness has led to some Linux fatigue: pulseaudio, btrfs, Gnome3, Wayland, Unity, endlessly-shifting APIs, etc. FreeBSD might be buggy in this edition but it's still pretty darned conservative by any Linux distro's standards, and that's not a bad thing at a time when suddenly many people are taking a renewed interest in alternatives to their favorite Linux distro. Who knows, maybe there will be some converts. Lord knows FreeBSD is a lot more approachable than the other BSDs.

I went to play.google.com and searched under apps for "RSS Reader" and it turned up at least 160 apps. Guesstimate that about half are either specialized ("News feed for the Syrian Revolution") or bad quality and you've still got 80 apps, all of whom seem pretty darned indistinguishable.

Ideally, get one that offers OPML import/export to make your life easier. Typing all those feeds into a new reader would be a major unpleasant activity.

RSS is essentially my killer app for the internet, and definitely for my smartphone, and it's driving me crazy that the trend is away from RSS and towards making everyone download individual apps. The New York Times and the Economist are guilty of making their RSS feeds hard to find.

There are dozens and dozens of Android RSS readers out there, but by coincidence I settled on the same one as you and mostly like it. I hoped for a reader with cloud sync so that from one Android device to the next the app would remember which articles I'd marked as 'read' but no love. The closest I got was running an instance of ttrss on my own server and using not the official Android app but a 3rd party one. That was a lot of work and I didn't much like the interface, so I dropped it and am back to RssDemon again.

On the desktop side, huge thumbs up for the console based reader 'newsbeuter' and either rawdog or CURN. They're all somewhat obscure, but you can run newsbeuter on a shell account and then access it from work over SSH or something, and it's a lean, mean feed reader. Rawdog creates an HTML page you can use on your own site (I put one up for my own use here: http://therandymon.com/rawdogger.html via a cron script that runs every morning). CURN is a java app, which turns people off, but it's highly configurable and you can use it to create and mail to yourself an HTML email of your feeds, and do other things as well. All these solutions are better, in my opinion, than just being forced to download an app for every news source.

Then, you're only inches away from podcast technology too - highly recommend doggcatcher on Android for managing podcasts.

Was thinking that actually, Usenet technology is good for team collaboration on a project. With email, you only have access to the messages sent to you since you've arrived on the team, and you miss out on all the history. With an internal NTTP spool, all project conversation winds up in a single location, everyone has access to every message ever sent, and any new employee simply has to take the time to read through the history to see "how we got here." It also eliminates huge problems of attachments (impossible: post them to the doc repository and send a link), storage/replication of multiple mailboxes, and more. On the downside: 80 char hard wrapped, fewer and fewer useful clients, and it's different for a lot of workers who are used to Outlook + Reply All.

"Slack" is supposed to operate the same way, but doesn't thread its replies, which is inexplicable to me. I've found no other good substitutes other than perhaps a good mailing list with archive. Any suggestions for mail archive?

Maybe a devil's advocate is like a troll who is too daft to post anonymously :) I think you're right. The really sad thing about Slashdot these days is that the trolling is really amateur. A good troll has to be very carefully crafted and quite subtle. These days the level of dialogue is so banal the trolls all look like wankers. Where's the sport in that?

I'm going to keep playing the devil's advocate here, not because I disagree but simply because it leads to more discovery. My current company standardized on a bog-standard Microsoft shared drive, which for lack of curation/management turned into a corporate document landfill. I find Google Drive to be the cloud version of the same. Yes you can store a load of documents in sub-folders and such there, but it doesn't offer more sophisticated features like check-in, check-out, versioning, and so on (as far as I know).

Good advice, but your own response seems to me a reminder that there are no integrated systems that completely fit the situation (no surprise there) and it takes serious professional help to identify and install relevant systems.

Just discovered http://openkm.org, which is a doc repository that allows for check-in/out, team editing, and such. There used to be a similar system called o3spaces (Dutch), but they turned their attention to some kind of new Android/iOS app that does team writing, and they've let the collaboration system lapse, which is too bad - it was based on Tomcat and ran well. There are probably a few others out there. O3spaces had neat plugins for OpenOffice and MS Word so you could check out, edit, and then check back in your docs. That was awesome, but since the OO.o-LibreOffice split I haven't seen anyone updating their plugins and this model seems to be falling out of favor in lieu of constant-connection online editing, which is good if you're all plugged into fat connections but bad news otherwise.

On the messaging side, the ycombinator folks are crazy about something called http://www.slack.com which seems like running your business on twitter (internal communications) with links to Trello, Github, others. Seems pretty neat, but the messages don't get organized in a tree, so you've kind of got a running feed, which annoys me. I'd almost prefer an internal NTTP site (no peering, sharing) instead of corporate email, which sucks.

Can't wait to see what other tracking devices they come up with for consumers to wear, as the field of "wearables" must certainly include more than just watches and glasses. Just to get them started, here are my humble suggestions:

1. Tracking shoes: monitor your speed as you pass before shop windows in urban centers. Expect radically increased advertising from any shop before which your velocity slowed.
2. Tracking underwear: monitors not only your hygiene and how many times you drop trou in a day, but your sexual activity via sensors that monitor hormone levels. Plus: if your G+ account shows you are a public school teacher and you show any signs of sexual arousal during inappropriate times of the day, the appropriate authorities are automatically notified. For Republican women only: underwear changes color with sexual activity so you can be identified and publicly shamed by politicians eager to get you all back into the kitchen and undo generations of sexual liberation).
3. Tracking T-shirt: monitors your heartbeat as you watch different TV shows, correlates your pulse to specific scenes, and alters your twitter feed accordingly. Starting to see a lot of "sponsored tweets" for potato chips? Maybe you'll regret getting excited about that one cooking show.
4. Tracking headband/skull-cap. Provides you with a unique number and uniquely-identifiable GPS location for easy drone strikes.
5. Tracking belt: monitors your waistline and your body orientation. If you have a physical labor job and the belt ever identifies that you are in a horizontal position, your employer is immediately identified.
6. Trackable deterrent: if you are registered as a sex offender, your GPS-identified location within 100m of a school, daycare center, or whatever automatically unleashes a 150v electric shock to your nads via the wearable/federally-mandated "google *ass" buttplug which converts your body heat into stored electrical charge for your next zapping. (See? efficient!) With each strike, the voltage goes up until you eventually auto-sterilize yourself by melting your willy.

You sir are absolutely right, thanks. An inauspicious start to my editing career as well, then! Five internet points to you ;)

Wow, just visited that article. It's a beaut.

He said he had received an email from an anonymous Esa 'whistle blower' that claimed intelligent-sounding signals had been received from comet 67PChuryumov-Gerasimenko 20 years ago and the object is actually an alien ship in disguise. The email said: 'Do not think for one moment that a space agency would suddenly decide to spend billions of dollars to build and send a spacecraft on a 12-year journey to simply take some close-up images of a randomly-picked-out comet floating in space.

'Comet 67P is not a comet.'
...

The whistle blower, who insisted on remaining anonymous for fear of reprisals, insisted the comet 'is only being disguised as such' and appears able to change trajectory at will. The letter added: 'As for who is disguising it and why I cannot answer; all I can tell you is that whatever this thing is, it does show signs on its outside of machine-like parts and unnatural terrain. 'Whatever this object is it did not ask to be found or scrutinised, and it appears for good reason.' Other theorists spoke of 'alien structures' in images of the comet, in particular a bright white 'metallic' disc on or hovering above the 2.5 mile (4km) wide lump of ice and dust, and a sculpted non-human face.

Awright - that would explain why Philea is no longer transmitting any images or data! It has discovered the master race and been taken up into the mother ship where it has achieved full consciousness and is now plotting the immediate destruction of the human race.

Can someone tell me how homo sapiens became the species at the top of the food chain? Must be opposable thumbs, not our intellect, because we are capable of believing some extraordinary horse sh*t, that's for sure.

Jeez man, you are a pro!

billshooterofbul: I tip my hat to you. That was really good stuff.

Watch Pakman's interview with Brianna, when he ask her how she knows the harassment was from GamerGate she accuses him of running a hit piece. Members of GamerGate even tracked down one of Anita's harassers, Brazilian Game journalist who admitted to it, and she's done nothing except cover it up. She issued a DMCA take down of a YouTube video of the Gamer that recording the chat session. We had a mass report campaign to the FBI, but my understanding is they can't/won't do anything unless Anita reports it.

Jeez, what a pissing match!

Does anyone have any insight into whether the BB really predates the RaspberryPi? That was a surprise to me.

Interesting. I use Fastmail (fastmail.com, was fastmail.fm before last month) and they not only insist on SSL connection for IMAP but refuse to use StartTLS, and now I understand why. I didn't before. Too bad we're learning everything the hard way!

It pisses me off - you can no longer trust your machine, can't trust your connection, can't trust your ISP, and can definitely not trust your government. Now what? I'm off to buy a typewriter and kickstart a FIDOnet replacement via a RaspbPi node I can run from an underground bunker. We're going from bad to worse here.

Given that some conspiracy theorists insist to this day the moon landing never happened and was instead staged in a California laboratory, I think I'll get a headstart on this one and start insisting the entire voyage is a fiction, that there is no lander, no comet, and the whole thing is just a hoax by German scientists cooked up to conceal their secret underground Nazi laboratory where they have brought Hitler back to life ... help me out here, a good conspiracy theory has to be better than this, although I think a Nazi reference is fairly obligatory to these nutcases.

Oh, I've got it - it's a fake mission created because behind the real comet is actually a space ship full of aliens who are going to obliterate the earth, saving only those who prepared for the voyage by wearing white Nike sneakers and carrying a picture of Kim Kardashian in their left pocket ... help me out here, |.ers.

Given the lag in radio communications, I think that means that at the time the scientists were hugging and giving high-fives, Philae was actually airborn again - kind of neat to think about. Seems the comet has a very weak gravitational field and it's a non-negligible risk Philae could just drift off the surface again.

This is the coolest thing ever, and I'm stunned how little coverage it's getting in mainstream American media. This is for me like the moon landing for our generation.

Because that's the story.

I used to think imessage was a neat program, because it seemed to work so effortlessly. In an age where you paid top dollar for a limited number of SMSes per month, being able to imessage your friends all day, every day, was a huge draw to iphones for the teenage set.

In light of this though, I retract my enthusiasm. Seems they forgot to design for something pretty big and important, and that is by software standards, a pretty public and pretty obvious blunder.

Good point. That sentence was my addition to the submitted article, and my point was that it's hard to have hope when Congress is now in the hands of the Republicans, whose sole purpose on earth is to defeat anything Obama proposes. But maybe you're right, and I hope you are! [I also hope this story remains about tech, and steers clears of politics. I hate politics.]

Vanderhoth - Hope my edits made this story more understandable without distorting anything! I spent a lot of time trying to get it into shape. It's an interesting story - thanks for all the time you put into it.

No. We laugh "WITH" the Onion. We laugh "AT" Fox News :)

Didn't know that - thanks!

Sure seems like the exploits by big vendors' software make a pretty big splash too - there sure is a lot of press about the latest Microsoft hacks - The Register.co.uk for example has a field day with "Patch Tuesday."

Link to Soylent here, with the Powerpoint story: http://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=14/11/03/038209

Oh, and before Microsoft pats itself on the back, there's a vuln going around now that uses freaking Powerpoint as a vector, so Microsoft isn't free and clear yet either:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/10/22/powerpoint_attacks_exploit_ms_0day/

Powerpoint, fer Chrissake. How long have we been dealing with this? Adobe, same thing. So tired of updating Adobe products.

Drupal is pretty darned dominant though, in the web content world, anyway. I know Wordpress is probably the biggest one out there but Drupal is probably second I'd think, or not far away from the top, anyway. But on /. and elsewhere, wherever a Drupal thread comes up there's an instant reaction from people who have programmed for it, and they complain it's a hairball of spaghetti code. Maybe this was a train wreck in the making and anybody who knew the code knew sooner or later it would happen.

Still, how would you like to be the person responsible for writing a security announcement that goes, "unless you've patched recently, you have probably already been compromised?" That's got to be pretty uncomfortable.

So does Google. My phone started bothering me to turn on autosync something or other and as soon as I figured out what it was doing I shut it the hell off. Lots and lots of pictures going from my phone to Google and some of it becoming available via G+ or something (or at least, being at risk of that happening) made my blood run cold. I don't want anything autosyncing ever, unless I set it up myself. I saved a stupid from Reddit to my Downloads folder on my tablet, and later found it synced to my Android phone a bit later - WTF? Not what I wanted, and good thing it was a stupid cat picture and not something else ...

Not happy about this new autosync world - I know it's being portrayed as a convenience but to me it's a way bigger risk than it is a convenience.

Looks like a bit of advance planning went into that one - nice work! The only thing that costume is missing is Sigourney Weaver at your side. Yeah I know, she wasn't at Venkman's side; just looking for an excuse to go to a party with Sigourney Weaver.

I would've put a mini-keg in the backpack and squirted beer out the nozzle. Next time!

Guess these kinds of growing pains are expected in an industry that's sort of remaking itself, but it's been a pretty tough week for fans and proponents of space travel.

Interesting article, but not germane to |. I'm afraid.

I've taken the liberty of posting it to the dictator.* hierarchy though (sadly, the d.asia newsgroup since there are too few oceania posts to make a dedicated group worth it). Read it on Usenet or at http://forum.dictatorshandbook.net

Let us know if there's much to it beyond the soundtrack. Me, couldn't be arsed. ;)

Now, if they ever come out with a "Flying Spaghetti Monster" edition, I might have to install it, if only just for the sake of it! Agree this distro is silly, per my criteria, but then hey - to each his own. It seems this has a following, which is kind of amazing.

If FreeBSD installed with its own soundtrack, wonder what it would be? Tangerine Dream?

The happy face and wink have immediately set me at ease. ;)

Well, they said in their press release they were going to study and learn from this error, so hopefully this will be one of the things they study: maybe we shouldn't buy our parts used and rely on others for quality control.

That's like planning your mission using ebay as your supply stream!

I've got to say: Pipedotters sure get their knickers in a twist fast over these polls! Hope you have better results electing your democratic leaders!

Tell you what: if you've got exactly $100 in your pocket, buy me a coffee, relax, and carry about your day. Had I put $0-99, $100-$199, etc., you'd have worried about the cents.

Life is short - be happy, not anxious! That's a public service message from your friendly, volunteer editor. (And once you're feeling happy again, post some stories - the Pipe is dry!)

That question isn't exactly off topic, but it's not hard to find out, either. Microsoft is getting a cut in royalties on Android (related to FAT, I think?). Try this:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=microsoft+royalties+android

The BBC is reporting $1B per year from Samsung alone, which is a decent chunk of change. Good thing, since Win8 isn't selling at all /snark.

Agreed. Also: with the exception of curl, there aren't really any good alternatives to wget. It's good at what it does, and gets worked into all sorts of useful scripts.

Scary when you add it all up, but one Samsung Note 3 already puts me in the highest category. What happened to the days when your wallet was the most important thing in your pocket? Now it's been outranked by a factor of 100, since I've only got $8 in my wallet today ...

That is some really impressive video footage. You know something is going to happen as soon as you notice acceleration is decreasing, not increasing. As for the explosion, I had a pilot friend point out, given the volumes and volatility of aircraft fuel, there's going to be an explosion. "Every time you see a plane crash, and there's no explosion, you know the cause of the accident: he ran out of fuel; almost any other kind of problem leads to a crash with an explosion."

Anyone have a segway or know someone who actually bought one? Not me, mind you, just wondering. Always thought those things look so silly.

Hard to see how this will shake out in the US: higher bandwidth internet connections threaten the cable providers, and the ISP oligopoly - who are frequently cable companies too - seem more bent these days on protecting their vested oligopolic interests than in investing in new infrastructure or improving the quality of service.

I'm not hopeful that reason will prevail in the United States where better internet infrastructure is concerned. Sure would like a nice, zippy connection though. Maybe I should move to S. Korea.

Curiosity but also a chance for me to learn: what would be a better word? Is there one? Or are we stuck with "showered with gamma particles" etc.?

You're right. I'm wondering what this guy's qualifications are and on what technical merits he makes his determinations. I mean, to work for Network World or whatever you have to be pretty savvy, know technology, and have a good working knowledge of systems and code, right? Or do you just have to be a journalistic hack with a whiny penchant for criticizing themes.

You want an interface that surprises you? Let's set your journalist butt down in front of a Ratpoison instance and see how you do. You surprised now, you journalistic fraud, you?

You might be new, but you seem to know exactly what to do. Welcome aboard, grandpa :)

I'm a non-programmer, but I hear you on the keyboard issue and you're right - laptop keyboards are a recipe for RSI problems. My HP Chromebook 14 has chiclet keys - easily the worst keyboard style ever. It's better than my HP laptop at work though, which is a very similar build but with slippery, flat, smooth keys. It's like, does anyone at HP actually use these machines to see if they're nice to use?

If you want to plug in peripherals and don't care about portability, there are Chromebox desktops too - I think Acer make them and I recall Bryan saying he had bought one. They look cool to me.

I bought my Chromebook to run Bodhilinux on, since my netbook gave up the ghost (sniff, sniff, loved that machine). But ChromeOS is working basically well enough that I've never gotten around to it. Maybe I should give it a try this weekend - doesn't seem that hard, and the hardware itself is pretty darned good.

Any self-respecting bureaucracy, if left unchecked, spends its time recommending added bureaucracy, patting itself on the back, and giving itself increases in salary. It's almost laughingly predictable. Let it go on for too long and you get the United Nations. The solution is oversight and reductions in budget. Bring down the hammer of thor, now!

I'm glad for the post. Half the reason I read sites like this one are the recommendations for projects and solutions I'd been previously unaware of. Glad for the tip.

For bonus points, patent the new format and license it; include code prescriptions like "format table like StarOffice 7 did" without really saying more than that. Finally, bribe the bejeezus out of the standards body so it becomes a new standard. Ka-Ching! Sound familiar?