Comment Re:Next Up: (Score 1) 99
"A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at kick boxing"
Comment If you want something done properly... (Score 2) 298
... do it yourself.
A vanity domain name, a VPS hosting an ubuntu instance running postfix, dovecot, spamassassin, roundcube, denyhosts and duplicity backup to some rsync.net space.
Yes it costs money, but I control the whitelists, the filtering, the retention and the backups. It's a small price to pay. I wouldn't expect my grandmother to set up something similar, but I can host extra mailboxes if need be. It's not that hard to do if you've been running linux for a couple of years. Set it up and forward a copy of your email from your current provider for a few months until you feel comfortable with your set up.
Songbird Fossil Virus May Help Predict Pandemics 42
An anonymous reader writes "Researchers announced they found a fossil virus hiding in the most unexpected place: the chromosomes of several songbird species. This ancient virus resembles human hepatitis B virus. Finding this ancient virus will catalyze new lines of inquiry that may help scientists predict and prevent future human viral pandemics that originate in birds."
Comment Rusty Russell's Wimote hack (Score 1) 417
Rusty gave a talk titled FOSS Fun With A Wiimote at Linux.Conf.Au in Wellington at the beginning of the year.
Videos at http://2009.r2.co.nz/20100118/50062.htm
The Virtual Choir Project 58
An anonymous reader writes "Conductor and composer Eric Whitacre has successfully created a virtual choir using the voices of 185 people who posted their performance on YouTube. The piece that's performed is called 'Sleep,' composed by the conductor himself in 2000. Anyone can join in — all you need is a webcam and a microphone."
Comment Re:Step 1 (Score 3, Informative) 359
Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it.
-- Brian W. Kernighan
Comment Re:Here's a better idea (Score 1) 173
for example do you know the history of Erlang?
No, but I've seen the movie.
BlackBerry Bold Tops Radiation Ranking 189
geek4 writes with this excerpt from eWeek Europe: "Data from the Environmental Working Group places the BlackBerry Bold 9700 as the mobile device with the highest legal levels of cell phone radiation among popular smartphones. Research In Motion's BlackBerry Bold 9700 scores the highest among popular smartphones for exposing users to the highest legal levels of cell phone radiation, according to the latest 2010 Environmental Working Group ranking. Following the Bold 9700 are the Motorola Droid, the LG Chocolate and Google's HTC Nexus One. The rankings still put the phones well within federal guidelines and rules."
Novell Bringing .Net Developers To Apple iPad
315
GMGruman writes "Paul Krill reports that Apple's new iPad could be easier to write apps for, thanks to Novell's MonoTouch development platform, which helps .Net developers create code for the iPad and fully comply with Apple's licensing requirements — without having to use Apple's preferred Objective-C. This news falls on the footsteps of news that Citrix will release an iPad app that lets users run Windows sessions on the iPad. These two developments bolster an argument that the iPad could eventually displace the netbook."
Tower Switch-Off Embarrasses Electrosensitives 292
Sockatume writes "Residents in Craigavon, South Africa complained of '[h]eadaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns' after an iBurst communications tower was put up in a local park. Symptoms subsided when the residents left the area, often to stay with family and thus evade their suffering. At a public meeting with the afflicted locals, the tower's owners pledged to switch off the mast immediately to assess whether it was responsible for their ailments. One problem: the mast had already been switched off for six weeks. Lawyers representing the locals say their case against iBurst will continue on other grounds."
Comment Re:Finally..an alternative (Score 2, Informative) 276
vrms's one seems reasonable...
Comment Re:Climate Scientists? (Score 1) 458
[...] mostly oceanographers, [...]
The atmosphere-ocean system is a coupled one on climate timescales. Oceanographers are very much climate scientists.
Submission + - Germs taken into space come back deadlier
westlake writes: "It sounds like the plot for a scary B-movie: Germs go into space on a rocket and come back stronger and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened. In a medical experiment, salmonella carried about the space ahuttle in the fall of 2006 proved far more lerhal to lab mice than their earth-bound source. 90% dead vs. 40% dead in twenty-six days, with half the mice dying at 1/3 the oral dose. 167 genes in the strain had changed. The likely casue: In microgravity the force of fluids passing over the cells is low, similiar to conditions in the gastrointestinal tract, and the cells adapted quickly to the new environment. Germs taken to space come back deadlier"
Submission + - GCC Compiler will finally gets replace by BSD PCC. (undeadly.org)
Sunnz writes: "A leaner, lighter, faster, and most importantly, BSD Licensed Compiler PCC has been imported into OpenBSD's CVS and NetBSD's pkgsrc.
The compiler is based on the original Portable C Compiler by S. C. Johnson, written in the late 70's. Even though much of the compiler has been rewritten, some of the basics still remain.
It is currently not bug-free, but it compiles on x86 platform, and works being done on it to take on GCC's job."
The compiler is based on the original Portable C Compiler by S. C. Johnson, written in the late 70's. Even though much of the compiler has been rewritten, some of the basics still remain.
It is currently not bug-free, but it compiles on x86 platform, and works being done on it to take on GCC's job."
Submission + - Study finds P2P has no effect on legal music sales
MBrichacek writes: "A new study in the has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe. The study reports that 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. The RIAA has blamed the majority of the decrease on piracy, and has maintained that argument in recent years as music sales have faltered. Yet according to the study, the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total in 2002, leaving 74 million unsold CDs without an excuse for sitting on shelves."
