aviary

Found this article about how to catch an expiring domain name. Interesting, as this is a definitely very confusing process. The same author also refers people to his host, Dreamhost, which actually doesn’t sound bad.

Slashdot

• Cornell Researches have shown that our brains do not behave sequentially like computers do, but is in an ever-long continuous state.
• BCC reports that we may have spot a lake, or at least a dried lake-bed, on Titan.
• DVD Jon has cracked Google Video’s protection, with the source here. Addict3d also reports.

Making up for a weekend of not reading…

Slashdot

• Cringely publishes an idea to get free cell phone calls to anywhere. Basically, use your cell phone to call a local number at home, which then uses Skype to get around online. Implemented by IP Drum.
• CNN reports that Japan tested their new 223 mph bullet train.
• How to save money setting up a cooled server room, with two portable AC units, and a lot of bubble wrap.
• Setting up a Poor Man’s Raid. These people achieved 0.5TB with only $250.
• Instructions on how to retrieve your files on a CVS Disposable Camcorder.
• New Scientists reports that the Hubble Space Telescope has found a solar system in formation, and oddly enough, the system looks like the Eyes of Sauron from our point of view.

Neowin

• AMD sues Intel, citing anti-trust charges. Was on slashdot too.
• X-bit labs reports that Intel has released 64-bit extensions on Celeron D chips.

The BCC is reporting that the moon is currently appearing larger than it usually is, re-inviting theories about why the Moon appears to be so.

Slashdot

• OSNews has an article about FreeBSD 6.
• MIT researchers have managed to create a superfluid gas of fermions, discovering a new form of matter.
• The Washington Post is reporting that the Pentagon is creating a database of 16-college students for commercial and military solicitation purposes.
• Researchers at University of Massachusetts Amherst have discovered a microbe that can produce small electrical wires.

Adopt a Chinese Blog is a project I’d definitely look into later when I have the time.

Decided to figure out what was the difference between FreeBSD, NetBSD and OpenBSD.

• forums.devshed.com/t73907/s.html, a forum post collecting some useful and comprehensive links about BSD. Link #2, Explaining BSD, was especially helpful since it was written as a historical account of BSD.
• www.inner-smile.com/bsd.phtml, a small collection of (mainly broken) links about BSD.
• The NetBSD, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD FAQ, parts 1-10
• www.greasydaemon.com, a guide to BSD Unix, with installation and other useful tutorials.

In the end, I’ll choose to try FreeBSD first, then OpenBSD. I might actually try installing FreeBSD on my T43p, though that seems to be a very unwise decision.

Side thought: I wonder if FreeBSD supports USB2.0 speeds. This tutorial describes how to connect a USB mass storage device to a FreeBSD computer, but doesn’t tell us if it’s capable of 480mbits/sec (it doesn’t seem to be able to, given the “da0: 1.000MB/s transfers” debug output upon insertion).

Slashdot

• New Scientist reports on the fact that old computer formats will have to be re-discovered quickly if we want to be able to be able to look into our own histories.
• The Wall Street Journal has a report about the underground world of business phishing.
• The first American reporter to visit Nagasaki has been finally published by a Japanese news source. CNN describes the article’s recovery.
• NASA researches creating glass in zero gravity, using sound waves to hold an object in a desired position.
• GDHardware reviews the AMD Athlon 64 FX-57, which is a 200MHz upgrade of the FX-55 to a clock of 2.8GHz. The article also notes that while a 200MHz upgrade on an Intel chip doesn’t means much, the rule doesn’t hold for AMD.
• Microsoft’s new shell beta, MSH/Monad, is out for public consumption. The Channel9 wiki describes how this works.

Neowin Software

• AutoPatcher XP June 2005 has been released.

Picked this up from lkml - an article on IBM DeveloperWorks about inline assembly for x86 in linux.

• Someone’s released Schillix, an OpenSolaris derivative in a live cd form.
• git seems to be the new source management system the linux kernel is using. This is the git “repository” for linux-scsi.
• A guide to a lot of the linux distributions, some of which I’ve never even heard of before. Kinda reminds me that I’ve yet to try gentoo and ubuntu.