December 2008
16 posts
Y2k+8 for Zune - Ars →
It appears every 30MB Zune stopped working at mdnght. This does not appear to be a DRM problem, s other Zune models continue to work - for now at least. UPDATE: Consensus on Zune forums seems to be that the problem was related to this year having 366 days. Some Zunes appear to be recovering once their batteries run down and the unit resets.
Ars: National Archives struggling to absorb Bush... →
The use of proprietary formats and systems by the Bush White House is slowing efforts to incorporate the records into the National Archives. (Presumably costing some taxpayer $$ as well.) Hope Obama’s CTO takes open government more seriously.
Ars: Pew survey shows online news overtaking print... →
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Dark Energy Stunts Galaxies’ Growth - NYTimes.com →
Another bit of experimental evidence supporting the existence of dark energy: “the new data strengthen the suspicion — but do not prove — that dark energy is a weird antigravity called the cosmological constant that was hypothesized and then abandoned by Albert Einstein as a ‘blunder’ almost a century ago. If that is true, the universe is fated to empty itself out eventually, and...
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NASA - A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field →
Global warming? Feh. Time to start worrying about whether the long-overdue reversal of the Earth’s magnetic field blasts all tech back to the battery-and-vacuum-tube era.
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A day on the automile - The Boston Globe →
From a story on local auto sales in today’s Boston Globe - on the front page, but should have been in the Missing the Point section: “Not only is the dealership not moving many cars - just one by lunchtime - Deyab has spent more than two hours working to get a customer, Lisa Conrad, into a new Cadillac Escalade. And still no sale.” The article reports that the area dealerships...
Office Web will be available from Mac, Linux,... →
Missed this the first time around: Per an article in Computerworld, Microsoft’s planned cloud version of MS Office, called Office Web, (or sometimes Office 14) will support multiple browsers, including Safari and Firefox. Mobile Safari support will be supported, meaning the iPhone will have access to Office as well. No word on Chrome support, though since Chrome is built on Safari’s...
CDT to Obama: advent of "the cloud" makes privacy... →
How to Find Gifts for People Who Bug You - wikiHow →
Thieves Winning Online War, Maybe Even in Your... →
The Times John Markoff gives a good overview of the state of computer crime, including some figure son the monetization of PCs by criminals via botnets. These were lower than some I’d read, but still pretty significant in terms of totla numbers.