(There may be other ways of doing this, but FWIW…) If you’ve ever wanted to reduce workspace clutter by merging two terminal instances, you can do this easily by creating a tabbed view within one of the instances (SHIFT+CTRL+T) and dragging the tab (or tabs) you wish to merge to the other instance. Simple eh?
Can’t confirm if this works in KDE, but I suspect it does 
To understand what’s really behind the furore over MPs’ expenses, it’s necessary to understand that it’s not primarily about whether or not it’s right to claim for moat-cleaning, or even about whether or not claiming for non-existent mortgage payments is fraud. It’s about a conspiracy (sic) to hide the workings of parliament from the people it serves, from the people who fund it. Tin-foil hat stuff? Have a read of the following. It explains the background to this whole sorry saga.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/may/15/mps-expenses-heather-brooke-foi
EDIT: After alluding to it in the title above, I neglected to mention the following jaw-dropping quote in the article above from the head of the House of Commons Fees Office, Andrew Walker: “Transparency will damage democracy.” Given the sustained assault on civil rights and personal liberty that members of parliament have been responsible for over the last decade, that they and their officers can display indignation over what they perceive as an invasion of MPs’ privacy is quite stunning hypocrisy and arrogance.
Glyn Moody on the just-announced fine imposed by the European Commission on Intel:
These fines arise, after all, from the abuse of monopoly power. And there are no greater abuses than those associated with intellectual monopolies – patents and copyrights. The more that the European Commission punishes such monopolies, the sooner, it seems to me, it will be forced to confront the worst monopolies – those actually backed by its constituent governments. If it wants to make the European markets truly fair, and to promote competition, it should not just be hitting big, bad companies that bully competitors, but the big, bad system that has such bullying at its heart.
Double-punch for Wintel Duopoly - and Beyond
UPDATE: a perfect illustration of the type of monopoly tolerated and facilitated by governments, legislation and regulatory frameworks: the ultimate form of legal extortion
Not using that proprietary Web bottleneck, Twitter.
What are you doing?
Naked Wizard Tased By Reality from Tracy Anderson on Vimeo.
Remember all that stuff about how Tasers were humane, non-lethal replacements for firearms? About how police officers would only use them against knife and gun-wielding crims or any other situation in which an officer feared for his life or safety? At least, that was the official justfication. However, as was predicted by many, their principal use in the US has turned out to be the subjugation of anyone refusing to comply with a police officer’s orders, and this is a much larger section of the public than those wielding dangerous weapons.
In this video the man could have just been handcuffed, arrested and charged with whatever offence he was committing. In a democratic, accountable society it’s the job of the courts to meter out punishment, but these officers couldn’t be bothered with all that pesky bureaucracy. After the obese officer’s cowardly and dangerous knee drop into the nudist’s stomach failed to hurt the prone man sufficiently, three fit, well-trained policemen really should have been able to render him immobile, even though handicapped by wearing little gloves to protect them from germs. They can certainly do this in Japan, but then Japanese police officers aren’t too fat to tie their own shoe-laces, they all practise judo or aiki-jutsu and their primary concern isn’t avoiding getting their Ray-Bans bent or their shirts creased. I realise it’s a bit much to expect the porkers in this video to do much else other than sit on people, wave batons around or pull triggers, but it would be nice for the American public if their ordinary police officers were fit and capable enough to be able to subdue suspects of highly questionable threat without resorting to torture methods or lethal force.
Of course, a single video does not constitute evidence of widespread abuse of the device by police officers. But then, that’s why we have services like delicious. If you’re not up to speed with the Taser issue, I suggest you spend a few minutes scanning the following link’s listings:
Want to understand the difference between free and non-free, restricted and unrestricted software? The following system notifications provide a big clue:
System notification Ubuntu Linux style
System notification Windows 7 Starter Edition style
IMO, David Gilbertson has nailed the new policing mentality in this new article in the Guardian. We’ve been watching it develop for years, and anyone who has been ‘comparing and contrasting’ the US police force with that of the UK could see where things were heading:
“Increasingly, British policing morphed into a faux-US style of operation. Uniforms were made to look overtly military. The public were regarded, almost uniformly, as suspects, with any hint of dissent interpreted as anti-police. To this must be added the post-9/11 and 7/7 atmosphere. A succession of intrusive powers under the various terrorism acts convinced many officers that they are frontline combatants in the war on terror.
The concept of officer safety has assumed a life of its own. It started in the late 1990s with the laudable aim of designing a stab-proof vest for officers as a response to a small number of knife attacks. The concept has now moved from a defensive posture to an aggressive model. Officers are trained to be on guard against attack, to regard every situation, no matter how seemingly benign, as a threat situation. The lesson is that the public are your enemy.”
At the core of this policing crisis is a leadership failure
I’ve been regarded with extreme scepticism from some quarters for making the same claims over the last few years (especially that in the second quoted paragraph). It’s encouraging to see that there is growing agreement about the nature of the new policing.
EDIT: Have just realised that Mr Gilbertson is a former Scotland Yard commander and assistant inspector of constabulary, something which of course makes the article all the more important!
Certainly madam, if you’d just like to first smile for the video camera…
“Hell is where the cooks are German, the lovers Swiss, the mechanics French, the organizers Italian, and it’s all policed by the British” (1)
