IBM has ported Linux to the Cell. The interface to the SPUs is implemented as a new filesystem — spufs. Directories in that filesystem correspond to virtual SPU contexts, which are scheduled by the kernel to run on your machine’s physical SPUs. To use an SPU, you create a directory in /spu (say /spu/my-spu-context), copy […]
Interesting, and long, explanation for how to make teenagers love Linux. I mostly agree with Cacophony: the desktop needs to be a bit more useable, and multimedia (including semi- or completely illegal use thereof) really needs to be easier to set up.
Iran is implementing its own version of the Great Firewall of China. The most […]
In 1841, Thomas Babbington Macaulay made a speech in the British Parliament against an act that would have extended copyright terms to 60 years after an author’s death. In 2002, a kuro5hin member posted the speech online. Today, I’ve finally read it, and would make some comments.
Macaulay argued from three points. First, that a long […]
UF has a short and cute debunking of BSA’s methods for calculating world piracy levels.
I did not know that there is a gun on board every Soyuz spaceship. It has three barrels — two for shotgun ammunition and flares, one for rifle rounds — and apparently is very well-balanced. I suppose that if one misses […]
Another Supreme Court decision: today, the Supreme Court of the US ruled in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster. Grokster, a notorious for-profit p2p network, claimed that its right to produce p2p software was protected by the Betamax decision, because Grokster had some uses that did not involve copyright infringement. However, in a 9-0 decision, the Court ruled […]
Today, the Supreme Court of the US ruled in Kelo vs. New London. The Court decided that local governments have the right to seize private property through eminent domain for whatever purpose the local government might wish. In this particular case, the private property was seven houses (including one belonging to a Mrs. Dery, who […]
TipMonkies posted a “beginner’s gude to Linux distros”. Worthwhile reading, although it appears that the writer didn’t have in-depth experience with any of the distros he/she describes. That being said, here are some of my experiences. As a background: I started out using RedHat, first by failing to install version 6.something, and then by successfully […]
Yadistclean is a very useful tool for Gentoo-lovers. It looks through /usr/portage/distfiles, and deletes the sources that you don’t need. Runs pretty fast, and saves lots of disk space.
A good tutorial for cracking wireless networks. I was impressed by the TCP/IP-over-ping method…
Finally, will free online porn disappear, or will it simply move to Europe and […]
In 1998, Russia’s security services introduced SORM-2 (Система оперативно-розыскных мероприятий 2), which forced Russian ISP’s to purchase and install “black boxes” for comprehensive monitoring of internet communications. These regulations were roundly criticized, buth in Russia and by foreign governments and organizations; some went as far as to say that Russia was becoming a police state. […]
One of my housemates has an iBook with OSX 10.4.1; whenever she tries to access a Samba share on by Debian box, her Finder hangs. Turns out that starting with 10.4, Apple requires NTLMv2 encryption. I don’t understand why it would matter in my case (the shares are open to guest access, there are no […]
Apparently, US Congresspersons have finally heard of the infamous July 2002 Blair memo, and are holding an unofficial (but public) hearing about it. I am surprised that it took more than a month for news of the memo (revealed by the Sunday Times in early May of this year) to cross the Atlantic. Still, better […]
The difinitive guide to sed one-liners. Good for showing off in front of Unix newbies.
Daniel Robbins, creator of Gentoo, joins the dark side. Is he being groomed as the new Sith Lord?
A good guide to performance measurement on Linux. Quick summary : vmstat, iostat, and netstat are your friends.
Finally, a good summary of X windows […]
I have no words: Rectal Impaction Following Enema with Concrete Mix. I have a suspicion that one day, the guy will be in the running for a Darwin Award.
Longhorn is losing features right and left; WinFS has been given the axe, and now Monad has been cut. A /. post summarizes the remaining new features in Longhorn. And they sound surprisingly similar to the upcoming features in Linux/free Unix desktops…
Longhorn feature
free Unix desktop feature
Avalon: a new user interface subsystem and API based on […]