18217592
submission
dotancohen writes:
Oracle today announced the release of VirtualBox 4.0, only two weeks after the first 4.0 beta. It seems snappy, and has lots of features, despite controversy over which components are open source and which aren't. Oracle seems to be doing all right with their Sun acquisitions!
18045306
submission
dotancohen writes:
This morning all Lifehacker and other Gawker Media posters got an email: We've been hacked! Read the official "we store passwords in plaintext" excuse here and use this tool to check if your own username and password were compromised.
Oh nos, I use the same username/password combo here at ./! Maybe this is a hacker posting as me?
17516410
submission
dotancohen writes:
Don't put your MicroSD cards into Windows Phones. According to Samsung doing so is a 'permanent modification' to the card, and it can no longer be used in other devices.
17191596
submission
dotancohen writes:
As my hands wear I find that I need an ergonomic (split) keyboard. It seems that 98% of the available ergonomics are either crippled with dome-switches or have unusual designs which place many critical keys under the thumbs (I cannot use my right thumb). The one normal-appearing contender, the Northgate Ergonomic Evolution, seems to be noisier than even the Model M, in fact it echoes! Programmers and hobbyists geeky enough to be here today, what do you type on?
12340100
submission
dotancohen writes:
The Cryogenic Underground Observatory for Rare Events is looking for neutrinoless double-beta decay. However, even the minute amount of radioactivity in the lead used to shield the experiment is enough to introduce error into the experiments. That's why a 2000 year old shipwreck's lead cargo is so valuable to CUORE that they financed the vessel's salvage. With all the radioactive isotope lead-210 depleted, the ancient lead may provide both adequate shielding from external radiation and not introduce it's own.
11612416
submission
dotancohen writes:
Now that Oracle is reigning in Sun's business potential, the once-free-as-in-beer ODF Plug-in for Microsoft Office is now $90. Oh, and it upsells a support contract and a Media Pack!
9992174
submission
dotancohen writes:
Should open source projects have any responsibility or commitment towards their users? Although FOSS projects certainly have no financial or legal responsibility to their users, is there a moral responsibility when users build their businesses and lifestyles around the software? What if the user invests his time filing and triaging bugs? What if the user contributes art, documentation, or helps other users in community forums and mailing lists?
What weight or arguments does a business have that, for instance, may have standardized on a project such as KDE-PIM and must suffer through releases with reduced functionality as the KDE4 growing pains affect that project? Must businesses that demand stable, mature software rely only on proprietary software and support contracts?
8845726
submission
dotancohen writes:
It appears that an Iranian nuclear power plant will be operational in about two month's time. Just in time for the Iranian New Year. As an Israeli, I am both happy for Iran that they are achieving energy independence (they can hardly refine their own oil), yet frightened by the threat of a nuclear-armed country who has repeatedly stated that we will be "wiped from the pages of time". Does the tinfoil hat go under or over the ABN mask?
6686301
submission
dotancohen writes:
I am performing research on email address harvesting patterns, especially from illegitimate websites. My biggest challenge was a surprising lack of places to sign up for spam! Assuming one _wants_ to receive illegal spam, how would one do it? To which websites must I provide an email address to be sent to the harvesters? I am using purpose-registered accounts at major webmail providers for the purpose.
