Tag Archives: Holy Shmoly

Silly descriptions of languages and platforms. hehe.

According to Reuters it’s not serious yet, but I remember reading a book a few weeks ago on this very subject, with disasterous consequences. *shudder*

“If a person contracts both human flu and bird flu during this peak flu season, that may result in the two sharing their genetic information and emerging into a new strain with the ability to jump very efficiently from human to human.
“If that happens, it will be an emergence of a pandemic, something we don’t want to see,” Chan told Reuters.

A new release of TWiki is available.
As this is the first release since December 2001 there are plenty of changes, bug fixes and new features. Go see it now!

Here’s the C64 version. Looking at the specs it looks like a cross between a C64, Amiga, and PC!

• It has c64 expansion slots, as well as a 6502 compatible CPU.
• It has a copper chip like on the Amiga, but from the description of it, I think the C64 can do what it did anyway (read “About the Copper” on the Specifications page.) as anyone who did any assembly programming on the C64 will have manipulated the raster beam to display more than 8 sprites for example.
• It has ports for a PS/2 keyboard, and fits inside an ATX case.

That’s just a summary. Read the specs page for more. The Slashdot discussion has even more, including info on on what FPGAs are.

IMO, there are lots of _very_ cool FPGA devices about to hit market, and they are going to change how we use computers. Gaming not the least.

There’s a couple of good links listed in this thread, including many I had never heard of. Not sure if I want to enable automatic pings when posting though. I think doing it manually at the end of the day is better, unless of course you want lots of hits or something..

I finally updated the front page with the linux.ie template. Everything should be fine for the launch next week. Fingers crossed!

Cringely writes another interesting column. Our programs instant messaging each other? Hmm. Very difficult job to do.

Good article on the Linux desktop.

The Register reports a worrying attack on PIN numbers, although “the risk of attack comes from a corrupt insider, perhaps in computer operations and with access to sensitive manuals, who might be able to use the attack to refine what would otherwise be a brute force attempt to guess PIN numbers.” And with a maximum of 3 or 4 attempts at an ATM nobody’s going to do this on the street. Probably.

This script looks like it’d be very handy for those of us who have to accept mail from Outlook users.

ytnef is a program to work with procmail to decode TNEF streams (winmail.dat attachments) like those created with Outlook. Unlike other similar programs, it can also create vCalendar/vCard entries from meeting requests, address cards, and task entries.