25093754
submission
dzfoo writes:
We can now have lossless compression* in all our music files while maintaining our principles against proprietary lock-in: Apple Lossless Audio Codec is now open source!
* Or perhaps more accurately, we can now feel free of guilt about using ALAC, and less fearful of a future where its officially sanctioned support ends.
21074548
submission
dzfoo writes:
Do you find Saturday to be too inconvenient for the end of the world? Then sign the online petition to postpone Day of The Rapture (DoTR) to next Tuesday--at least one full day after the week-end!
1157711
submission
dzfoo writes:
.NET Reflector, the powerful disassembly tool created by Lutz Roeder, has been ceded to Red Gate, a vendor of .NET developer tools. What does this mean for the future of this indispensable developer tool? According to Red Gate they will continue to provide .NET Reflector as a "free download", but there is no real indication of it's future availability as freeware from their comments on the sale.
668054
submission
dzfoo writes:
The Register is announcing that a new replica of Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 is doing the rounds at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
From the article:
Silicon Valley got its first look at the true roots of the digital age this week, with the arrival of a five-ton calculator made from the designs of the Victorian-age mathematician and Londoner, Charles Babbage.
[...]
There on display, the completed device caught the eye of former Microsoft chief technical officer and millionaire, Nathan Myhrvold, who in 2002 commissioned a second difference engine of his own.
Only finished last month, the second difference engine replica will be on display at the Computer History Museum until May 2009. After that, it will be moved to Myhrvold's home in the Seattle area.
You can get a glimpse of the mechanical beauty of this contraption, along with an interesting historical account on its design and construction, at the Museum's page.
35341
submission
dzfoo writes:
Someone has come up with an ingenious solution to Wikipedia's accuracy and piracy issues. Hint: it involves chickens. From the article:
I give you a new Wikipedia. A Wikipedia evolved, a Wikipedia that lives in the here in the real world. A Wikipedia that makes just one tiny concession to vandals, a concession for the greater good. I give you Wikipedia 2.0, otherwise known as Wikipedia: Every Topic In The Universe, Except Chickens (Dot Com).
