A Swede set up his fully-patched Mac Mini online and challenged all comers to try to crack into it. It took a single cracker 30 minutes to do so. Doh!
05 February 2018: updated URL
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The little town of Steamboat, Colo. has switched to free software. Ever onward, Colorado!
06 February 2018: updated URL
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An excellent LiveJournal post examines programming languages in terms of sexual relationships. Extremely funny if you know what it’s about; beyond opaque if you don’t. I get it, so I loved it!
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The GNU Compiler Collection 4.1 has been released, with some exciting new changes. Given that gcc is at the heart of almost everything running on my system, it’s good to see the development is continuing and improvements are being made.
And to think that once upon a time people charged huge sums for compilers!
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initng is a a new way of starting services on a Unix machine, taking advantage of the fact that many boot-time processes can be started synchronously. I’m not certain if it’s as stable as the old SysV init, but it’s certainly worth a look.
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Well, Apple are happily celebrating their one-billionth song sold, and Thomas Hawk points out that it’s the consumers who are getting shafted. All that music you’ve bought is only playable on Apple-approved platforms; if something better comes out, something which threatens the Great Fruit, then you’re SOL: they won’t support it, and you can’t play it. Meanwhile, those of us who insist on freedom are just as well off as ever.
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A homeless man from Greensboro, North Carolina, has been posting to one of the world’s first homeless blogs. He created his blog using the local public library’s computers. A real profile in industry. Although I wonder why he’s had such difficulty finding work: typically those who have trouble in life have … issues.
3 February 2018: use archive link
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A fellow has definitive proof of the need for High Definition television, in the form of frame captures of various scenes. The difference is truly striking: it’s like the difference between dirty and clean glasses. Sure, one doesn’t need clean lenses, but the world sure does look more pleasant with ’em. Likewise, while the differences when watching a motion picture tend to smooth over, the sharper image available with HD is a definite advantage.
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Russell Beattie punctures some of the hype surrounding Web 2.0. Remember: it’s all about the money, stupid.
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Just read an article at prescod.net titled Is Perl Difficult?; it argues that Perl’s complexity and throw-everything-into-the-language tendency combine to make it significantly more difficult than it really needs to be.
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Here’s a really nice quick and dirty introduction to Unix. Well worth your time, if you’re unfamiliar with it.
04 February 2018: updated text
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You may have heard of case-modding, in which folks create cool cases for their computers. Well, a fellow has installed a computer in a whisky bottle. Way, way, way too cool.
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