Year 2006

Ο ΟΤΕ διπλασιάζει το εύρος των γραμμών ADSL δωρεάν.

Σε άρθρο της Ναυτεμπορικής εχθές (19/5/2006) αναγράφεται πως ο ΟΤΕ σκοπεύει να διπλασιάσει, δίχως κόστος, το εύρος ζώνης γραμμών ADSL σε υπάρχοντες συνδρομητές (και με την ανάλογη υποθέτω πτώση τιμών σε νέους) κάποια στιγμή στους επόμενους μήνες, με πιθανότερη ημερομηνία τον Σεπτέμβριο. Αυτό σημαίνει πως η γραμμή ADSL 384kbps θα μετατραπεί σε 768kbps, η 512kbps […]

Shellcodes, explained.

Many friends often ask me 'What are buffer overflows?' or 'What is an exploit' and often they are people with some programming experience but little or no understanding of lower level programming. I usually describe the process in simple terms and if someone wants more info I refer them to a good book or an online tutorial. This article is a very good short introduction for someone quasi-knowledgeable in C and/or some x86 asm with a casual interest in security.

The day-after Apple woes.

In 2001, they touted Titanium. They Failed. Then they turned to anodised aluminium. They Failed once again. It's been slightly more than a day since the Macbook came out. It seems that it flakes. They probably failed again...Where did that QA dept. go? In other news, OS X is no longer Open Source at any level [1] as Apple removed the source for the Intel version of the OS. Very sad. Back in 2002 they were advertising its 'Openness':

Open at the Source

The Darwin project coordinates contributions from thousands of programmers in the open source community. Through the open source model, Apple engineers and the open source community collaborate to create a better, faster and more reliable foundation for Mac OS X.

I guess all that rhetoric just joined the QA dept. :)

Smart vectors.

A somewhat interesting flash exhibition of computer art.

Some more on Biofuels.

Just days after my article on Petroleum I found a Google Techtalk by Vinod Khosla, one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems and a renowned venture capitalist, who talks on the matter. I am embedding the video from his talk below. Click on the ‘play’ button to view it or go to the respective Google […]

The Armenian Genocide.

The EUObserver has an article on yet another clash between France and Turkey over the Armenian Genocide. The two countries clashed again over the same issue in the early months of 2001, when the French Parliament officially recognised the Armenian Genocide, joining a host of other European countries and institutions, 39 of the 50 U.S. […]

Securing the EU — Theory and practice

I read today an article about the dangers that security research will bring to the EU, not just at the institutional, but mostly at the civil level, through the corrosion of fundamental rights and freedoms (often by stealth), the waste of public funds, the unaccountability associated with unaudited (and considerable) powers given to commercial entities […]

Will Wright on the Computer History Museum (Google Video)

The man behind the SimCity and the Sims series of games, some of the world's most successful and original games of all time, speaks about game design, invoking the user imagination, modelling, and his own approach to gaming. Fascinating.