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Comment Re:Stupid! (Score 1) 577

by osoroco (#36365812) Attached to: Could Apple Kill Off Mac OS X?
this was the main catalyst for me to dive into mac: a unix terminal. that and the instant wake from sleep. now that i have some games on the mac, it adds value to it as an os. if wine didn't break so easily or companies developed for linux, i wouldn't need mac at all

How Apple's iOS Went From Insecure To Most Secure 312

Posted by CmdrTaco from the shaking-in-my-boots dept.
GMGruman writes "There's no such thing as a perfectly secure operating system, but security experts agree — somewhat grudgingly in some cases — that iOS, Apple's mobile operating system, is the most secure commercial OS today, mobile or desktop. It didn't start that way of course, and Robert Lemos explains what Apple did to go from insecure to most secure."
Wikipedia

Wikipedia and the History of Gaming 240

Posted by Soulskill from the citation-needed dept.
Wired is running a story about Wikipedia's tremendous contribution to documenting the history of video games, and why it shouldn't necessarily be relied upon. Quoting: "Wikipedia requires reliable, third-party sources for content to stick, and most of the sites that covered MUDs throughout the ’80s were user-generated, heavily specialized or buried deep within forums, user groups and newsletters. Despite their mammoth influence on the current gaming landscape, their insular communities were rarely explored by a nascent games journalist crowd. ... while cataloging gaming history is a vitally important move for this culture or art form, and Wikipedia makes a very valiant contribution, the site can’t be held accountable as the singular destination for gaming archeology. But as it’s often treated as one, due care must be paid to the site to ensure that its recollection doesn’t become clouded or irresponsible, and to ensure its coalition of editors and administrators are not using its stringent rule set to sweep anything as vitally relevant as MUDS under the rug of history."
Music

Ozzy Osbourne's Genome Reveals Some Neanderthal Lineage 151

Posted by samzenpus from the born-to-rock dept.
ByOhTek writes "CNN reports that in July, rocker Ozzy Osbourne became one of few to submit his blood to have his full genome sequenced and analyzed. The results are in, and it turns out his genome reveals some Neanderthal lineage. What does Ozzie have to say about it? 'I was curious, given the swimming pools of booze I've guzzled over the years - not to mention all of the cocaine, morphine, sleeping pills, cough syrup, LSD, Rohypnol... there's really no plausible medical reason why I should still be alive. Maybe my DNA could say why,' he wrote."
Bug

Why You See 'Free Public WiFi' In So Many Places 260

Posted by Soulskill from the deja-vu-all-over-again dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Almost anywhere you go these days (particularly at airports), if you check for available WiFi settings, you have a pretty good chance of seeing an ad hoc network for 'Free Public WiFi.' Of course, since it's ad hoc (computer to computer) it's not actually access to the internet. So why is this in so many places? Turns out it's due to a bug in Windows XP. Apparently, the way XP works is that if it can't find a 'favorite' WiFi hotspot, it automatically sets up the computer to broadcast itself as an ad hoc network point, using the name of the last connection the computer attempted. So... people see 'Free Public WiFi' and they try to log on. Then their own computer starts broadcasting the same thing, because it can't find a network it knows. And, like a virus, the 'Free Public WiFi' that doesn't work lives on and on and on."
Education

Submission + - How Well Will Linux Handle Future Multicores? (mit.edu)

Submitted by eldavojohn
eldavojohn writes: Multicore (think tens or hundreds of cores) will come at a price for current operating systems. A team at MIT found that as they approached 48 cores their operating system slowed down. After activating more and more cores in their simulation, a sort of memory leak occurred whereby data had to remain in memory as long as a core might need it in its calculations. But the good news is that in their paper (PDF), they showed that for at least several years Linux should be able to keep up with chip enhancements in the multicore realm. To handle multiple cores, Linux keeps a counter of which cores are working on the data. As a core starts to work on a piece of data, Linux increments the number. When the core is done, Linux decrements the number. As the core count approached 48, the amount of actual work decreased and Linux spent more time managing counters. But the team found that 'Slightly rewriting the Linux code so that each core kept a local count, which was only occasionally synchronized with those of the other cores, greatly improved the system's overall performance.' The researchers caution that as the number of cores skyrockets, operating systems will have to be completely redesigned to handle managing these cores and SMP. After reviewing the paper, one researcher is confident Linux will remain viable for five to eight years without need for a major redesign.

Comment Re:The Don't Buy It - iPass (Score 2, Interesting) 1634

by osoroco (#30933792) Attached to: iPad Is a "Huge Step Backward"

yeah, I agree, I won't buy it because I don't like it.
In fact, I publicly announce here and now, that I WILL NOT buy anything that I DON'T LIKE.
Thanks Jeff, you've opened my eyes!

All sarcasm aside, pretty much everyone was expecting something to compete with the kindle -and- netbook/tablet pc's, ie. running a full OS X, not a supersized iphone, hence the disappointment on the iPad

Comment Corporate Communism (Score 1) 300

by osoroco (#30580412) Attached to: UK Consumers To Pay For Online Piracy
If the record industries can do this, how long until an individual can convince the government that he should get paid for possible losses due to household robbery or carjacking? (yeah I know, never, they'll call him communist in .5 seconds) This is corporate communism

Comment Twilight? (Score 1) 347

by osoroco (#28799377) Attached to: People Emit Visible Light
with all the teenage girls already fantasizing about sparkling vampires, do we really need to feed their imaginations with this?

or is this a new era of teenage pickup lines: "I heard you like people who sparkle as a result of the sun hitting on their skins... baby, I emit my own light"

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Thus spake the master programmer: "After three days without programming, life becomes meaningless." -- Geoffrey James, "The Tao of Programming"

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