hweimer - Slashdot User

Submission + - Journals Resolve Copyright Conflict over Wikipedia (quantenblog.net)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Monday October 06, 2008 @02:59PM

hweimer writes: "The American Physical Society (of Physical Review Letters fame) is one of the most important publishers in physics. Recently, they took some heat when they refused to give permission to authors to create derivative works of their publications for open content sites such as Wikipedia. They have now changed their copyright policy, allowing authors to include up to 50% of the published content in derivative works."

Submission + - Few Banks Use Extended Validation Certificates (quantenblog.net)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Monday August 04, 2008 @03:11AM

hweimer writes: "The latest thing against phishing are extended validation (EV) certificates. Supported by Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7, these certificates promise that the site has gone through a more extensive validation of its owner than ordinary SSL certificates. Being a proponent of EV certificates, I conducted a test on how many banks already use them. The surprising result: only thirty percent."

Submission + - Liberation Fonts Increase Interoperability (quantenblog.net) 1

Submitted by

hweimer

on Wednesday June 25, 2008 @03:26AM

hweimer writes: "Most problems when opening Word documents under GNU/Linux are due to missing fonts. Therefore, Red Hat published a set of fonts metric-compatible with the Windows core fonts last year. However, there were some concerns regarding the licensing that prevented many other distros to ship them. We finally managed to settle these problems, leading to better document interoperability for all GNU/Linux users."

Submission + - Major PC Vendors Push for Open Source Drivers

Submitted by

hweimer

on Tuesday April 29, 2008 @07:44AM

hweimer writes: "Remember the heat the Linux Foundation took for allegedly not giving enough attention to Desktop Linux? However, the latest events on the foundation's annual summit draw a different picture. Industry heavyweights like Dell, HP and Lenovo 'announced on stage that they will now include wording in their hardware procurement processes to "strongly encourage" the delivery of open source drivers'. The move specifically targets desktop and mobile products."

Submission + - Monitoring internet censorship with Tor (quantenblog.net)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Saturday April 12, 2008 @12:09PM

hweimer writes: "Playing around with Tor, I figured that you cannot just use it to evade censorship, but also turn the tables and monitor internet censorship in various parts of the world. Not only that, you can use Tor to visit websites pretending you come from almost any country."

Submission + - MS launching a Patent Ambush on Free Software?

Submitted by

hweimer

on Thursday March 27, 2008 @04:46AM

hweimer writes: "Yesterday, Microsoft and Milan-based Sourcesense announced they collaborate to contribute code to Apache POI, a Java library for manipulating Microsoft Office files. I think this collaboration has two possible consequences: either it will turn POI into the greatest patent laundry of all time, or it will help Microsoft to launch a patent ambush on the project. Feel free to decide which one is more likely."

Submission + - Version Control for Scientific Writing?

Submitted by

hweimer

on Monday November 19, 2007 @12:56PM

hweimer writes: "After having written a few papers with several co-authors each I have learned to enjoy the benefits of a version control system. Personally, I prefer Subversion for the job, however there are still annoyances like merging various BibTeX files with incompatible index styles. What are your solutions for making life easier? Do you use any custom code like hook scripts in Subversion?"

Submission + - Disney Forces Cancellation of Metal Concerts (roadrunnerrecords.com)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Monday October 01, 2007 @03:09PM

hweimer writes: "Several heavy metal concerts scheduled to take place in clubs located on Disney park property in Anaheim and Orlando have been cancelled due to pressure from the entertainment giant. With only a few days notice, some concerts could be moved to other venues, while some had to be nixed completely. Maybe someone should have told them that metal isn't just for stupid morons."

Submission + - Open Source Quantum Simulator Gets a Boost (libquantum.de)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Monday September 03, 2007 @08:50AM

hweimer writes: "The libquantum Development Team proudly announces the release of libquantum 0.9.1. With this release, the free high-performance quantum simulation library not only covers quantum computing, but allows to simulate arbitrary problems within quantum mechanics as well."

Submission + - Tracking the status of Office Open XML (blogspot.com)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Sunday September 02, 2007 @12:36PM

hweimer writes: "The ISO voting deadline on OOXML is drawing near, yet there are still many countries that haven't published their results so far. Finally, someone has started to put all the pieces together and maintains a scoreboard of all OOXML votes."

Submission + - http://www.quantenblog.net/physics/work-heat (quantenblog.net)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Wednesday August 22, 2007 @09:10AM

hweimer writes: "The question how ideas from classical physics may be incorporated into the quantum realm is a long-standing topic in theoretical physics. Together with some colleagues, I have written a paper describing how the concepts of work and heat turn out in quantum mechanics. As a result you get some remarkable things, like a machine that both works and does not at the same time, but this may also help towards a better understing of thermodynamic properties of quantum computers."

Submission + - Germany's New Computer Crime Law not that Bad (quantenblog.net)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Tuesday August 14, 2007 @05:50AM

hweimer writes: "Being a German and publishing exploit code from time to time, I am directly affected by the new computer crime law. However, as I try to explain in a recent blog post reports of the death of German security research is slightly exaggerated. The written rationale behind the law gives a less bleaker picture."

Submission + - Paraolympian Takes on Non-Disabled Runners (dailynews.co.za)

Submitted by

hweimer

on Wednesday July 18, 2007 @03:45PM

hweimer writes: "Oscar Pistorius is undoubtedly the world's fastest disabled sprinter. Recently, he has started to compete with non-disabled runners, with the goal to take part in the Beijing olympics next year. His carbon fibre artificial limbs, however, have raised concerns whether he has an unfair advantage over non-disabled athletes. The international athletics organization IAAF is currently investigating the issue."

Submission + - Comparison of Open Source First-Person Shooters

Submitted by

hweimer

on Tuesday May 29, 2007 @10:21AM

hweimer writes: "First-person shooters are highly popular among gamers, the open source community being no exception. OS Reviews takes a look at different open source shooters in a comparative review and finds that they do not need to hide."

Submission + - SCO About to Face Delisting Trouble, Again

Submitted by

hweimer

on Friday April 13, 2007 @03:36AM

hweimer writes: "In 2005, SCO got into delisting trouble because they failed to timely file their annual 10-K report. This blog post says the same story will show up again soon, but this time for another reason: the stock price is too low to meet Nasdaq's requirements."

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