Fedora 13 Alpha was released yesterday with a plethora of new features and updated packages for this Red Hat Linux distribution. Aside from the features like Btrfs system rollback support and PolicyKit One support for Qt/KDE applications to excite end-users, each Fedora release always pulls in the very latest Linux graphics code. Fedora was the first distribution shipping with the Nouveau driver, then its KMS driver, and now with Fedora 13 it's the first OS deploying Nouveau's Gallium3D driver (there's benchmarks behind that link). Fedora 13 is also carrying the latest packages for the unreleased X Server 1.8, DisplayPort monitor support for more graphics cards, the latest ATI driver code from the xf86-video-ati DDX to the in-development DRM, and then there is the very latest Intel work too. To get an idea for the direction that the Intel 3D support is heading in this release, we have carried out a few quick OpenGL benchmarks.

Mozilla's high-performance TraceMonkey JavaScript engine, which was first introduced in 2008, has lost a lot of its luster as competing browser vendors have stepped up their game to deliver superior performance. Firefox now lags behind Safari, Chrome, and Opera in common JavaScript benchmarks. In an effort to bring Firefox back to the front of the pack, Mozilla is building a new JavaScript engine called JägerMonkey.

(Thanks to Travis Holte)

Access subsidiary IP Infusion announced a new Linux-ready "stateless tunneling" product that enables the coexistence of IPv4 and IPv6 networks. Based on the IETF's "6rd" (IPv6 rapid deployment) specifications, ZebOS Rapid Deployment forwards IPv6 traffic though existing IPv4 networks, enabling carriers to more easily transition to IPv6, says IP Infusion.

I pass this along letter on the census for your information, only. I do not counsel anyone to break the law. Of course, I’m not real sure of what the law is. A direct and literal reading of the U.S. Constitution it seems to me, a non lawyer, is clear as to what the law is: people are legally obligated, only, to cooperate in a head count for political representation purposes. But, my fear, my expectation, even, is that present courts will not interpret the law in that way, and may instead punish census rebels who refuse to furnish additional required (requested?) information. In any case, the following will undoubtedly be of interest to all people concerned with liberty; I offer it exactly as it was sent to me:

From: ronpaul-200@meetup.com on behalf of DarkLaw
Sent: Tue 3/9/2010 9:02 PM
To: ronpaul-200@meetup.com
Subject: Re: [ronpaul-200] Ron Paul CNN on Cafferty Files 2/27/10

My response to the Census

I compiled this letter and inserted it into the Census envelope, along with my 2010 census form.
I marked off that ‘02′ people reside at this address….and, well… read the rest!

Use this as a template! This is just another small step in which we can show the Feds we won’t take this nonsense lying down!
______________________

To Whom it May Concern,

Pursuant to Article I, Section 2, Clause 3 of the Constitution, the only information you are empowered to request is the total number of occupants at this address. My “name, sex, age, date of birth, race, ethnicity, telephone number, relationship and housing tenure” have absolutely nothing to do with apportioning direct taxes or determining the number of representatives in the House of Representatives. Therefore, neither Congress nor the Census Bureau have the constitutional authority to make that information request a component of the enumeration outlined in Article I, Section 2, Clause 3. In addition, I cannot be subject to a fine for basing my conduct on the Constitution because that document trumps laws passed by Congress.

Interstate Commerce Commission v. Brimson, 154 U.S. 447, 479 (May 26, 1894)

“Neither branch of the legislative department [House of Representatives or Senate], still less any merely administrative body [such as the Census Bureau], established by congress, possesses, or can be invested with, a general power of making inquiry into the private affairs of the citizen. Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 190. We said in Boyd v. U.S., 116 U. S. 616, 630, 6 Sup. Ct. 524,―and it cannot be too often repeated,―that the principles that embody the essence of constitutional liberty and security forbid all invasions on the part of government and it’s employees of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of his life. As said by Mr. Justice Field in Re Pacific Ry. Commission, 32 Fed. 241, 250, ‘of all the rights of the citizen, few are of greater importance or more essential to his peace and happiness than the right of personal security, and that involves, not merely protection of his person from assault, but exemption of his private affairs, books, and papers from inspection and scrutiny of others. Without the enjoyment of this right, all others would lose half their value.’”

Note: This United States Supreme Court case has never been overturned.

Respectfully,

A Citizen of the United States of America

–
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The casual view of open source software is that the code always comes first: releases are made when the code is ready, new contributors prove their chops by the quality of their code, and so forth. But in reality the FLOSS ecosystem relies on a complex legal framework in order to run smoothly and to stand up to proprietary software competition: the various software licenses, contribution agreements, copyright and other "intellectual property" law. Every once in a while, a good status check on the legal dimension is healthy for the typical developer, and SCALE 8x offered just that in a series of talks.

Barely a day goes by when you switch on your computer, plug into the web and come across yet another deranged scheme to restrict freedom in the name of security, safety or morality. RIAA, DMCA, RIPA, Pallidium computing, the list almost seems to grow exponentially. So, some guys got together in a dark room, brainstormed and came up with yet another ruse to curtail access to and use of the internet. Relax, this one won’t fly. Trust me. But the sheer audacity of it! Even the bovine docility of Windows users wouldn’t stomach this one (or would they?)—and here’s the irony. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.

93% of Icelandic voters said no to a big-bank bailout. “If only Americans could vote on such issues,” says Ron Holland. This is a reminder of why Murray Rothbard liked Ross Perot’s idea of such a populist system here, and why the New Republic compared Perot to Hitler. Indeed, there was an Old Right proposal to require a national vote before going to war. That was called Hitlerian too.

(Thanks to Mark Fee)

Except for Tux, the Linux penguin, Linux fans have a reputation as a rather dour, serious lot. Now, the Linux Foundation, the nonprofit organization dedicated to growing Linux, has launched a new Linux merchandise store featuring a new line of exclusive and original T-shirts, hats, mugs and other items that reflect “geek culture.”

Of course, there’s [...]

Clamav is the most popular free anti virus program for Linux environment.( Of course it scans for widows virus) However, clam is a command line utility and you need some skills for manipulating is properly. There are several graphical front ends for clam av which can make your life easy. The most popular among them are clamtk and Klamav.

Vsftpd is one of the most secure and fastest FTP servers for Linux. Usually vsftpd is configured to work with system users. This document describes how to install a vsftpd server that uses virtual users from a MySQL database instead of real system users. This is much more performant and allows to have thousands of ftp users on a single machine.

Bill, it’s even worse than you describe. Not only can the (apparently fragile) black psyche be attacked by Walmart’s pricing of a doll, but the white psyche too. One could argue—were he irredeemably statist and weak-minded—that Walmart, by pricing black Barbies at a lower price point than white Barbies, is actually discriminating against people who want to buy a white Barbie!

Walmart—keeping the black man and the white man down, with the same action.

A friend asks what non-book Amazon products are most popular among LRCers. Here are a few:

Miles of Paracord, in every color:
Magnesium/firesteel fire starters;
Emergency thermal blamkets
Don’t Tread on Me flags;
And the most popular health item — vitamin D3 5000.

The three best-selling books last week:

Andrew Napolitano’s Lies of Government Told Us: Myth Power and Deception in American History;
Jesse Ventura’s American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies and More Dirty Lies That the Government Tells Us;
Ron Paul’s The Revolution: A Manifesto.

Thank you for supporting LRC by shopping for just about everything at the amazing Amazom marketplace, the most-trusted brand in America.

Connecticut politics needs MMA, says Don Pesci: a debate cage match between Peter Schiff and Richard Blumenthal.

Operating systems market share is something that is hard to judge. There are lots of numbers out there provided by lots of different people. Which figures are you to believe and which ones should you take in with a grain of salt?

When I’m really, really bored at an airport, I’ll start looking around the local Wi-Fi networks with WireShark. This is an outstanding network protocol analyzer. Usually it’s used for checking out what’s really going on in your business network. Of course, if you know what you’re doing you can also use it on Wi-Fi to [...]

The biggest science story to hit the mainstream media in the last year was of course the big switch on at CERN. What made it such a great story for me was not just the sheer and audacious enormity of the enterprise or the humbling nobility of the colossal experiment but the story behind the story. That story was the absolutely central role of free software philosophy at the heart of everything CERN was (and is) doing. Despite the false start, CERN’s search for the Higgs Boson has got into its stride. The same cannot be said for the car crash that is climate science, which may have inflicted terminal damage on the reputation of science. I believe the rigorous application of free software methodology in conjunction with the Fourth Paradigm may save it. Read the full article at Freesoftware Magazine.

Writes Steve Candidus:

It seems that many of our fellow countrymen don’t much care about killing, starving, maiming, or even torturing people as long as they “Aren’t like us.” To this end our American invention of ‘Agent Orange’ has been killing Asians for more than 70 years…

From Nicholson Baker’s marvelous book:

…EZRA KRAUS, a botanist from the University of Chicago, had an idea for how to win the war with Japan. It was December 18, 1941.

Spraying rice fields with toxic levels of growth hormones, Kraus thought, “would be a feasible and comparatively simple means of destruction of rice crops, the staple food supply of the Japanese.”
Kraus’s work led him to experiment with two synthetic hormones – 2,4-D and 2,4,5-T – components of a defoliant that would later came to be called Agent Orange…

Page 458, “Human Smoke – The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization,” Nicholson Baker

Agent Orange — killing innocents since 1941… The end of civilization is right. Americans still seem to love killing Asians in the most uncivilized ways.

A woman is talking loudly on her cell phone during a movie in CA. A man shushes her, and is stabbed in the neck—with a meat thermometer—by the woman’s boyfriend. Loud talking in the movies, even if not guarded by a criminal: just another reason people watch downloaded movies on their big-screens at home, and tend not to go to the theater.