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Requesting feedback for a distribution of Linux to install on a spare PC. The PC has a 4th Gen Intel i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and a 1 TB hard drive, so I should be good to go. While I used UNIX a lot during my 30+ year career, I have minimal Linux experience.

In the highly competitive race to get self-driving cars to the market, most companies hold their secrets close. But when it comes to helping those cars figure out where they are on the road, some experts are ready to open up. Argo AI, based in the Strip District, and Aptiv, based in O’Hara, publicly released some of their own data sets earlier this year in an effort to further advancement in the field. The companies shared parts of their own maps of cities where they are testing self-driving cars, including Pittsburgh. That may seem strange considering the abundance of applications...

Linux was a 'cancer' but Microsoft is now defending it IBM, Microsoft and the Linux Foundation have partnered with the Open Invention Network (OIN), a company formed to protect Linux from patent threats, to take on "Patent Assertion Entities", also known as patent trolls.Specifically, the group will help fund the Open Source Zone of Unified Patents, an organisation which provides legal services to deter "unsubstantiated or invalid patent assertions".The move had already been flagged at the Open Source Summit in Lyon last month, but the identity of the participating companies was not then known. OIN CEO Keith Bergelt spoke to...

To: The Linux Foundation Jim Zemlin: Executive Director Angela Brown: VP of Events Andy Updegrove: Legal Council From: Robert Martin (@unclebobmartin) (unclebob@cleancoder.com) Re: Code of Conduct case of Charles Max Wood. Dear Linux Foundation: I am writing to you as a concerned member of the software development community which I have enjoyed serving for the last 50 years. I am writing in public because the events I wish to describe took place in public. I fear that something has gone terribly wrong within your organization; and that it will have deep repercussions within this industry that I cherish. The timeline...

Fourth time in three months when Symantec's antivirus crashes something. For the fourth time in three months, a Symantec security product is crashing user apps, and this time it's the latest Chrome release, v78, which rolled out earlier this week, on Tuesday, October 22.According to reports on Reddit [1, 2] the Google support forums [1, 2], and in comments on the official Google Chrome blog, Symantec Endpoint Protection 14 is crashing Chrome 78 instances with an "Aw, Snap! Something went wrong while displaying this webpage." error, as seen in the screenshot above.Users have been unable to use Chrome 78 at...

Monkeys may show off their physical flexibility as they clamber over tangled tree branches, but the animals also display impressive "cognitive flexibility," or the ability to quickly change how they think about, and work to solve, a problem. In the game, four squares appeared on screen during each trial: one striped, one spotted and two blank. In training sessions, players learned that clicking the striped square and then the spotted square would cause a blue triangle to pop up in place of one of the blank squares. Clicking the blue triangle produced a reward — in this case, an auditory...

COBOL is celebrating 60 years since its specifications were signed off. Darling of Y2K consultants, the language is rapidly approaching pensionable age, but many a greybeard owes their career to it. It arose from a desire to create a language that could straddle the computers of the era. Each manufacturer had its own way of working, which, while OK if a company always stuck with one maker, made portability of programs or skills a tad tricky. If only there was, say, a COmmon Business-Oriented Language? Wouldn't that be splendid? Mary Hawes, a programmer of Burroughs machines, put forward a proposal...

Ok- Not sure how to post vanity threads- hopefully i did it right by posting into general chit chat? Anyways, Looking for suggestions on how to run windows 7 securely on the internet since updates are gonna come to a close- I dual boot, and use Linux mint cinnamon as my main online OS- and use Windows 7 as my gaming OS, my photoshop OS- I do online Racing game which i have to connect to their site (Iracing) and occasionally have to look something up in firefox, but mostly i don't go online with windows except for those- I...

I want to control my Sonos-connected speakers from my window 10 laptop. I found the app for my IPhone and it works fine. N0w I need an app for my laptop. Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi, everyone. My computer has something called Cortana on it, and it constantly pops up and insists on trying to "help" me. (Like the government.) Does anyone know how I can disable it?

I just downloaded and started using Brave. All I've done is make it the default browser and import bookmarks from Chrome. Are there any other settings I should know about or addons to make it run better? In their addons they recommended Microsoft Edge but since I've never used it before I don't see why I would be using it now. Should I add that on for some reason? I am also using AdGuard 7.0, which I installed before Brave. Is the built in ad blocker for Brave good enough to make AdGuard redundant? I've never had any problems with...

After this I'll try and keep my Himedia problems quiet for awhile. I moved it a few rooms away from the router and now its wireless interface cannot see the home network. But the TV right above it can????? So how does one connect a LAN outlet to a wireless interface/unit? I've been poking around and see several items but was wondering if someone else already went thru this. I didn't want to get one that might not do the job. One reply from my previous query described all the things the Himedia box can do but obviously needs to...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton abruptly canceled her scheduled appearance at the FireEye Cyber Defense Summit set for this coming October. Clinton spokesman Nick Merrill explained that "this conference is for the world's leading security experts. It was decided that an appearance by the Secretary would undermine her claim that she used an unsecured email server and destroyed a dozen communications devices that were under subpoena out of ignorance and unfamiliarity with using computers and cell phones. We felt it would be better for her to adopt a position that as an aging person who grew up before such...

New Mac malware in the wild evades security software, researchers Roger Fingas for AppleInsider: Newly uncovered Mac malware is not only in the wild, but trying to avoid detection by security researchers, according to one such firm. Dubbed “CrescentCore,” the malware comes as it usually does —in the form of a DMG file pretending to be an Adobe Flash Player installer, Intego said. If someone launches its contents, the software will check to see if it’s running inside a virtual machine — a way researchers often quarantine their subjects. The malware also checks for several popular antivirus tools, and if...

Using a clip from a recent appearance on Conan, a YouTuber “deepfaked” Arnold Schwarzenegger’s head onto comedian Bill Hader’s body. Photo: YouTube ============================================================ A shadow looms over the 2020 election: Deepfakes! The newish video-editing technology (or really, host of technologies) used to seamlessly paste one person’s face on another’s body, has activated a panic among pundits and politicians. During an appearance on CBS This Morning this week, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri summed up the general attitude toward deepfakes, which his platform currently doesn’t have a policy against: “I don’t feel good about it.” Earlier this month, deepfaked and manipulated videos...

Jony Ive, Apple’s chief design officer, is leaving the company, Apple announced on Thursday. Apple stock dropped 1% on the news in after-hours trading. Ive is considered one of the most important people at Apple, responsible for the industrial design and the look and feel of all major Apple products, including the iPhone and the Mac. He had worked at Apple for more than 20 years. (please see link for full story)

A small city in Florida has agreed to pay nearly $600,000 in bitcoin ransom to hackers who took control of its computer systems in a ransomware attack, according to reports. The Riviera Beach City Council on Monday unanimously approved its insurance carrier to pay 65 bitcoin — valued at about $592,000 — in hopes of regaining full access to its network, the Palm Beach Post reported. The attack two weeks ago wiped out the city’s entire computer system. The city council was left without email and phone service, direct-deposit paychecks had to be hand-delivered instead and the police department had...

What are these weird directories, and why are they there? If you are new to the Linux command line, you may find yourself wondering why there are so many unusual directories, what they are there for, and why things are organized the way they are. In fact, if you aren't accustomed to how Linux organizes files, the directories can seem downright arbitrary with odd truncated names and, in many cases, redundant names. It turns out there's a method to this madness based on decades of UNIX convention, and in this article, I provide an introduction to the Linux directory structure....

Planned obsolescence, or built-in obsolescence, in industrial design and economics is a policy of planning or designing a product with an artificially limited useful life, so it will become obsolete (that is, unfashionable or no longer functional) after a certain period of time. No company will admit they have this policy, but we can observe this from a products’ average failure rate and the company’s sincerity in fixing it by making available parts required to fix it. This is why I am a huge fan of Japanese products and also Apple. Products are not merely hardware, Apple on the other...

FBI at hearing about Crowdstrike: the EPITOME of Ridiculous BS DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Agent Smith, you testified that the Russians hacked the DNC computers, is that correct? FBI AGENT JOHN SMITH: That is correct. DEF ATT: Upon what information did you base your testimony? AGENT: Information found in reports analyzing the breach of the computers. DEF ATT: So, the FBI prepared these reports? AGENT: (cough)…. (shift in seat) No, a cyber security contractor with the FBI. DEF ATT: Pardon me, why would a contractor be preparing these reports? Do these contractors run the FBI laboratories where the server was examined? AGENT:...