an image of an eye glowing green...

0wn yourself

2005-07-30

tenth planet or hundred millionth kuiper belt object

well, they found something else orbiting the sun, but they can't seem to agree whether or not to call it a planet.

if they do decide to call it a planet, they'll hardly be able to call it number ten (as there are some previously discovered objects floating around out there already which could lay just as much claim to the name), but it's really just semantics.

point is--we found something else out there that we had no idea about. this just underscores how much more there is to know about our own little corner of the universe (not to mention the great expanse beyond).

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

central american free trade agreement

cafta aproved (barely) by house.

--cid

lapd datamining their own

the lapd is going to use a computer to track complaints (and other 'warning signs') to get a handle on their officers.

sounds like they just need to fire a few people (especially in the higher-ups).

--cid

2005-07-29

drm is choking the life out of creativity, convenience, and fair use...

seth schoen, of the eff, recently published four short articles (number one, two, three and four) about his experiences at windows hardware engineering con and some of the new techniques and strategies they're going to be employing in the near future.

digital wRongs management is going to be marbled throughout every layer of the new version of windows.

these restrictive subroutines will be able to tell your computer what it's allowed to play, record, copy, store and even what hardware it's allowed to talk to (not to mention what programs it's not allowed to run).

think about it--telling _YOUR_ computer what it can _DO_!!

noncompliant software and hardware will be blacklisted (by microsoft, at the behest of any corporate entities it's in bed with) and new media will be able to require a certain version of the blacklist to be in place or else it just won't play.

lemme let that sink in for a second. this means that you can buy a new dvd or cd or something, bring it home and put it in your player, and the _dvd_ can tell you that you've gotta hook up to the global interweb and go get the new list or else it's not gonna do what you paid it to do. your dvd.

same with software.

if you load a player (or other piece of software) that windows doesn't like, it can simply stop working until you agree to play by it's rules.

nonsense.

and if the industry really thinks this is the magic bullet for stamping out piracy, they are in for a rude awakening. granted, a lot of lazy, apathetic and (plain) ignorant consumers will go right along with this (whether for agreeing with them, not realizing/caring/being inconvenienced, or just because they don't know what else to do) that unless we (the body of consumers) can unite and stand up to this, drm's not going anywhere anytime soon--in fact, it's prolly gonna progress to the hardware level (which raises it's own set of security/privacy concerns) in a further attempt to tell consumers what they can and can't do with equipment they legally purchased.

it just gives me a headache.

longhorn (or vista, or whatever you're calling it now), au'revoir! hello *nix (and other more enlightened, user-friendly platforms)!

speak _your_ mind....

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

2005-07-28

gta still in the headlines? c'mon.

i can't believe this is still in the headlines!! (bang-bang)

get over it, ppl.

so they put a little porn scene buried in the code. it's not accessible through normal gameplay and so it shouldn't have anything to do with normal activities, rules and regs surround the game. so what if the code's in there?

if you're just playing the game, you can't see it anyhow. just because it's in the code, doesn't mean that it's part of the normal game. and besides that, it's not a game for kids anyway.

i know, i know, it's (at least it was) legal to by in some places if you were seventeen, and pr0n's only s'posed to be for eighteen or older, but seriously, get over it already.

kids get porn, anyway (not that that one last year really means all that much), but that aside, they've changed the rating--it wasn't part of the publicly released game in the first place, and it's really no big deal. let's drop it.

// end rant //

--cid

new knee knows needs

this is an article about a bionic replacement knee which uses ai algorithms to learn how the user moves, and then adjusts performance accordingly.

very cool.

--cid

0wn your joints

amazing new japanese android

bbc's reported on a new female android developed by professor hiroshi ishiguro of osaka university.

and she bears an uncanny (creepy) realistic appearance. soft silicone skin and delicate arrays of motors attempt to simulate human movements. right now she can't walk, but after what we've already seen out of honda's asimo and sony's qrio, i wouldn't be surprised to see some combination of approaches soon.

--cid

0wn yourself

quantum entanglement in secure communications

quantum entanglement may lead to a method of secure communications.

the theory goes--if you can entangle two particles so they influence each other, and use that as a medium for transfer, any attempt to monitor or tap the system would be detectable by the effects the attack would have on the paired particle.

an interesting thought, and by the looks of this paper, they've successfully performed the entanglement procedure (though they're still, admittedly far from using this as a new communications medium). stanford has an interesting article with a little more of the subjects history.

quantum mechanics are showing some promise.

--cid

0wn yourself

2005-07-27

roberts docs dropped?

looks like mr. roberts got some of his docs dropped recently. interesting.

--cid

2005-07-23

assistive mechanical suits in japan

in japan, they're working on mechanized assistive armor to help the elderly get around and function in day to day life. you gotta check this out.

i want one.

with machine guns and rockets and laser targeting and stuff.

--cid

0wn yourself

microsoft--are you serious?

the guys in redmond _really_ stretched it this time. i'm sure you've already heard, and it you haven't, then have yourself a good laugh.

--cid

bbc opens more content

gotta give s'more shouts to the bbc for projects like their open sourced content. slashdot says that they're even opening more.

openminded projects like this and mit's opencourseware project (in which they o/s'ed a sizeable portion of their curriculum for the general public to have and learn from) are exactly what we (the ppl of the world) need right now.

maybe with enough support and forward-thinking philanthropic attitudes we can spark a new renaissance in the new millenium. art, music, language, writings, theatre, cinema, sciences, philosophy, debate, exploration...

that's what i'm striving for. let's remix our world.

--cid

0wn yourself

out with the old, in with the new... (telcos and the cable guys, i mean)

well, i (and many others) have been screaming it from the rooftops for quite a while now. this article agrees with me.

it's time for a new set of rules.

cable, internet, telephones, and cellphones don't do different things anymore. they all do the exact same thing--they just do it with different methods, but the crazy regulations (and government endorsed monopolies) need to stop. the playing field needs to be flattened.

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

challengers of the e911

this is an interesting read.

--cid

0wn yourself

cable modems learn a new trick...

superfast new cable broadband is on the horizon. according to finnish company teleste, speeds could hit something like a hundred megabits per second. pardon me while i wipe my chin.

they're saying that that the low end of the curve will be around thirty megs (where do i sign up, again?), but it'll prolly take at least a year or so before it's deployed. and god only knows when it'll show up in this market, but...

verizon offers (in some markets) a fiber optic to home service called fios, which touts up to fifteen megs.

military looking at microsatellites

and they're not the only ones...

small, relatively inexpensive satellites are starting to look better and better. it's quickly becoming more cost-effective to perform a lot of missions that wouldn't have been possible a short while ago.

hopefully, devices like this one will be able to perform service and maintenence on other satellites, eliminating the need for a spacewalk, and allowing for repairs, adjustments, and upgrades that simply wouldn't be possible by any other means.

hopefully this will also (by lowering overall cost) allow for some new and interesting uses of satellite technology. there's still a lot we don't know about the third rock from the sun.

--cid

nypd doing search-and-seizure on subway riders

well the new york police department are gonna be conducting random searches of subway riders' bags, purses, backpacks, and briefcases as they enter the system, and even while riding the trains.

donna lieberman, executive directer of the new york civil liberties union, seems to be keeping a more realistic point of view, here. she points out that while the chance of success is very small (think 'needle in a haystack'), the hassle this will cause commuters is going to have much more impact.

i'm just wondering to myself how, if the airport, who scan and search bags, scan passengers (make you take your shoes off?) can consistently miss lighters (which can be illustrated by the number of people in the smoking lounge who possess one), what kind of security do they expect to create by nosing around in someone's purse or backpack. maybe it's just me, but it seems like this isn't gonna do much for catching people, but it's gonna make a pretty big impact on day-to-day life for a _lot_ of people.

what do _you_ think? let's hear it.

--cid

0wn yourself

2005-07-22

moon maps

you've heard of google maps?

how 'bout google moon maps?

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

gta adult only, now

mature just wasn't a strong enough rating for gta:san andreas (one of the grand theft auto games by rockstar).

*shrugs*

i'm not even gonna get started...

--cid

what do these guys do, listen to old binrev and rfa?

is the cnn tech department just hurting for stories, or are they really that far behind the times? stank (among others) have pointed out time and time again how much google knows about you. and pretty much everyone else, for that matter...

i don't see how this is even a question. of course they're gonna store data--it's their effing job! that's what they _do_. that's why it's so important to not do anything stupid (or at least not do it under the watchful eye of anyone keeping any kind of database), and to be _aware_ of the kind of data collected by these services.

as far as the law enforcement part--that's life. any database can be subpoenaed. part of living under the us legal system. but as to the part about google hacking--the use of cleverly structured queries to obtain knowledge contained within the database, though not necessarily the most easily accessible through regular public means.

i guess that sounds kinda sinister, but really, it's just about being smart with the way you use a tool.

and as far as cnn--you're a little behind the times...

--cid

0wn yourself

2005-07-20

[insert clever 'beam me up' / afterlife joke here]

well, i'm ashamed to tell you where i heard this, but james doohan (scotty on star trek) died on wednesday. you'll be missed, scott dood.

--cid

losers dot org

losers dot org. i'm so happy.

--cid

more junk from the 'blogosphere'

i hate that word. i dunno why. i like the format, and i don't even really mind the word 'blog'. just really don't like the whole blogosphere thing. but, anyway, the reason i'm posting is because i found tony pierce.

this is why i wanted to mention the site. dunno if he made 'em yet or not, but...



and



--cid

strange site...

what a strange (and strangely beautiful?) weblog.

*shrugs*

--cid

0wn yourself

itaniums get new bus

intel is s'posed to be putting in a six hundred and sixty-seven megahertz frontside bus on the new itanium2's.

now, i've never said i know a lot about hardware, but could somebody who does explain to me how they've had 800Mhz fs buses on pentiums for awhile, now, but for itaniums (the server chip) 667 is s'posed to be a big deal?

i've been so impressed with hybrid projects like cell, that i seem to be getting cranky that we're seeing such a slow implementation of new math crunchers and clusters.

multicore is cool, but i wanna see something good. soon. give me some really meaty computing power, so software has to play catch up. then i'll be happy.

--cid Viscous

0wn yourself

how is this a bold move?

why is this such a shock? the bush admin's been putting right wangers into all sorts of offices since they took over. can you really blame them?

if i were in office, i'd put people who shared my views, too. and if i were less than moral, i might even put a few people into power i had under my thumb.

--cid

make poverty history

i'm not saying they have all the answers, but they have good intentions.

make poverty history
whiteband

--cid

thank you mr. dvorak...

...for starting such a debate. i learned a lot. and i found magnatune and cc mixter dot org. so i'll be checking these out and, as always, keeping my eyes open for new good things...

--cid

creative commons under collective fire

mr. john dvorak (of pc mag fame not of simplified keyboard fame--that was august) has written a pretty nasty article about creative commons which is like a volunteer-made extension of the copyright system.

it doesn't seem to do much that copyrights don't aside from making it almost instantly known whether the author allows people to use the covered material (and what they are allowed to use it for) without looking through pages of legalese. well, that, and provide something like eleven pre-made licenses which provide varying degrees of freedom for how the covered work may be used (without having to go to law school yourself).

oh, and did i mention that it also provides machine-readable tags which allow search engines and other software tools to classify the documents based on what license is used?

i guess i don't really know quite enough about the details to give a whole-hearted opinion one way or the other, but the article certainly sparked some interesting debates. these days, the consensus about dvorak will usually be that he's not much more than a bitter old man (commonly referred to on (/.) as 'troll'), but i digress.

like i said, i'm not one hundred percent sure whether this is the way to do it or not, but i _do_ recognize the need for a change in the way the system works. you can't sing the birthday song without violating copyright laws, these days.

and about a million authors all came out of the woodworks to express how horrible it is when people 'steal' their work, and blah-blah-whine-whine-blah...metallica..sob...whine-grumble-grumble-whine-sob. well, i'm an artist, too. i write (i didn't say how good...) so that makes _me_ an author. i'm a musician. i'm a photographer. and i'm flat broke!

sure, i'd love to make some money doing what i do, but just because i have to work a real job to pay the bills, doesn't mean i'm gonna stop being creative. and it doesn't mean i get to throw a fit if someone uses a sample of something i made.

that's another thing that seems to be overlooked in this whole copyright/fair use thing--almost no idea is original anymore. you can argue all you want (if you've got a good example that proves me wronge, let's hear it), but pretty much everything 'new' that comes out has at least one (and often dozens, if not hundreds) of precedents that it can be traced back to.

nobody can _BE_ original, anymore (in the copyright legal sense of the word), because pretty much everything's been done in one form or another. show me a creative work and i can find a precedent for it.

not everything, mind you. with a universe of infinite possibilities comes, well, infinite possibilities, but truly unprecedented _newness_, for lack of a better word, is very rare indeed.

the thing is, anyone's creative work (art, music, writing, inventions, whatever...) is influenced in some way or another by everything that they experienced previous to the creation of said creative work. period.

unless you were born and raised in a societal vacuum, you _HAVE BEEN_ influenced by the creativity of someone else, who was influenced by someone else, and on and on and on...

it's been this way for a lot longer than these debates have been going on, but now, thanks to a particular music scene, we've got a name for it--remix.

everything's a remix, now. and i love it.

you take a piece of this, and a sample of that, splice in undertones of a couple of these, with hints of those and voila--a new creation. in any medium, in any country, that's the basic way art (in all its forms) works. and, to be honest, that's pretty much how technology, law, and money work, too.

the creativity of a particular piece or artist cannot be measured by what went in, only by how creatively it was assembled.

please don't take this the wronge way, either. copyright laws were made to protect the interests and rights of the creative individual. and truly stealing something, claiming it as your own, and then making money or fame off it is exactly what copyright laws are s'posed to stop--but they're being used to sue people that don't necessarily deserve to be sued. they're not used to protect artists freedoms, now, they're used to _hinder_ those freedoms.

and what they protect (in a lot of these cases) are the interests of greedy corporations and individuals.

i think we need to step back and take a look at what our legal system has become. and i think we need to dig back into our roots to see the culture that's already there, and then maybe we'll have a more clear picture of where we came from, where this situation came from, and what we should do to make it better.

if you have any ideas, comments, suggestions--i'd love to hear about 'em. if you just want to tell me i'm a wanker, that's okay, too. and if you just wanna flame, troll or generally be mean, you can send those here.

and in the mean time, get out there and remix some culture. put your voice into the mix...

--cid

0wn yourself

2005-07-19

america needs more hardware nerds

i hate to say it, but gates actually kind of has a point.

--cid

gibsonian stories of corporate defection...

microsoft's apparently suing google for stealing one of their boys. they're suing kai-fu lee, too, claiming breach of contract because he signed on with google less than a year after his employment with redmond.

right now, it's money and lawyers. pretty soon they'll have to sneak 'em past private corporate soldiers and security perimeters to kipe a good employee from another corporate superpower. and of all the software superpowers out there right now, i think it'll be interesting to watch if google and microsoft start duking it out.

well, i'm watching....

--cid

0wn yourself

bletchley park

slashdot, as usual, coming through for me. bletchley park site with sixty years of memex, young codebreakers section (with basic cipher info), and a remembrance of alan turing.

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

are you gonna drop it already, riaa?

well, tnw had this interesting little snippet talking about a couple of songs that are not only topping the p2p lists, but also slamming out millions of copies on the billboards.

as the man said, 'the numbers seem to speak for themselves'.

--cid

facism-court--cat lovers?

so, i admit it. some times i hit the next blog button, just to see what pops up. this time i found this. i'm not sure what the sites about (and you've gotta wonder, with a name like like fascism court), but those are some darned cute pictures, i must also admit.

--cid

oss os/2 os? yos, er, YES, please!!

maybe they could open source it like tomshardware suggests.

here's hopin'..

--cid

20 guns for os/2

i'd call it a gun short, because they're not really dropping support for os/2, just putting it on a subscription basis (which i understand the reasons for). i just hate to see it go.

also gotta give ibm shouts for pointing remaining os/2 users (who can't afford or don't need a contract) towards linux as a replacement.

ibm, you're not quite the same beast i grew up loving, but my hat's still off to you (whatever part of you we may be calling 'you' now).

--cid

0wn yourself

laws because we can't do it for ourselves?

well, they're finally starting to round up some laws about data security.

and, like most things, i've got mixed feelings on the matter. on the one hand, i'm generally opposed to making a law anything that people can take care of themselves.

but, on the other hand, it's pretty much impossible to stop corporations (or private orgs and individuals) from collecting whatever kind of data they want to. and on that note, i'm still about the free flow of information--i'm not saying i _like_ being in all these thousands of corporate databases, but i _am_ saying that i feel anyone who wants to make a database of pretty much anything that's legally (and morally) acceptable to gather, should be allowed to do so.

but the thing is, most of the people and entitites building and maintaining these databases don't necessarily know a whole lot about security (or don't care or prioritze it correctly).

so, while i usually don't like the government stepping in to do things that people and companies should be taking care of themselves, it can easily be argued that they _aren't_ being taken care of.

if they do it right (which i doubt they will), maybe it'll stop incompetance like we saw back with cardsystems solutions when they lost forty million numbers and names that they weren't even s'posed to be _storing in the first place_!!

and that's it. they got off just fine. we should have dismantled that whole company (or at least given affected people the option of getting a new card number issued to them).

we've gotta take responsibility for our country or else someone else will...

--cid

sco--drop it, already

i can't believe this is even still in the news. this one just seems to put one more nail in the coffin.

i also can't believe sco hasn't dropped this by now. they've gotten nothing but bad publicity and a million skript kiddies DoS'ing their site again, and again, and again. and it still doesn't look like they've got a legal leg to stand on.

--cid

see bush backtrack. backtrack, bush, backtrack.

well, now president bush has apparently released another statement which raises the threshold or lowers the accountability (however you wanna look at it).

according to this, now the word is that anyone'll get canned who is found to have 'committed a crime' in the leak of the cia operative's name, not just whoever was found to be the leak.

he opened his mouth before he should have and now he's trying to fix it before it's too late. *shrugs* i s'pose that it's gonna play out the way it's gonna play out, but i don't think we should let him get away with going back on his word.

i'll be happy as long as the american body of citizens don't get any more of our personal freedoms stripped away in the process.

--cid

0wn yourself

laugh and liberty

here's the doj's description of the usapatriot act. what's scary is that it almost sounds like a good thing on their webpage.

just make sure you get the whole scoop (and you understand what it is that they're saying) before you delve too deeply into their marketing campaign.

it's true that the patriot act makes it 'easier' for law enforcement agencies to work together with coordinated effort, but it also violates many of the basic rights our country was built upon.

it basically let's them use the word 'terrorist' to break the laws when they feel it's warranted. now say what you like, but i think that any law enforcement that's public, open, or through the normal course of the system should be held to the same letter of the law that they are trying to uphold.

now, i also realize that the concept of terrorism (and in fact any kind of guerrila warfare) doesn't leave many options for 'playing by the rules' and some of the most effective strategies for dealing with true terrorism are blatantly illegal by our own standards. this creates a conflicting situation.

this creates a need for some kind of black-ops system. special forces, undercover intelligence agents, surveillance equipment, etc. the problem i have with this is that black ops should remain _BLACK_.

i don't wanna hear about it in the news, i don't want to read about it in any credible source. i want tv, books, and movies to be as far as the truth makes it into the public eye.

the problem with the patriot act is that it's not really about true terrorism. it's not about their people, it's about ours. laws like this can make anyone a 'terrorist'. and oops, if you're a terrorist you don't get any rights in this country. you just disappear until you do whatever it is that they want you to do.

who is this conspiracy-theory style 'they' i'm talking about? well, to be blunt it's the government. no, not the whole government--i haven't lost my mind.

the act has two kinds of supporters--those who did it, and those who are going along with it. to be specific, it's anyone who understands the true scary power of the usa patriot act and supports it anyway.

i've personally talked to a lot of people who are in favour of laws like this, and the only explanation i can find is that they read the shiny label on the packaging and then stop. you can't be a freedom-loving, blue-blooded american, read through the text of that bill, and then tell me that you believe in what they're trying to do with it. it's _UNconstitutional_!

if you haven't, go read it. and if you don't have the attention span, go read about it. here's a legal analysis of it.

bad stuff.

bad stuff being played off like it's good stuff.

and people eating it up. scary.

--cid

3ducat3 yourself

2005-07-17

presupice? really??

presupice?
okay, maybe i'm crazy for caring, but can this guy really be the only one to spell precipice with a u?

--cid

ebay pricing calculator

look what i just stumbled across.

--cid

boi from troy?

boi from troy

boy, boi, you seem to have pissed off/annoyed a fair amount of people in a relatively short amount of time.

aside from the (aforementioned) fact that she didn't actually publish an article on the matter, i'd say you bring up a good point. she _could_ be protecting her source (which would mean she's doing the honorable, noble, 'journalistic-integrity correct' thing, here) and going to jail.

or, she _could_ be doing this as some sort of publicity stunt (i mean, it's only four months and it's not like she'll be in general population, anyway. not saying it'll be fun, but...) or something.

or maybe she really _doesn't_ have a source like boi suggested. it could be a way of stirring up media unrest. (perhaps to distract from something else? maybe just for the media whore's delight--a four month martyrdom? who knows?) in the past she has painted herself in a colour which some might call 'warmonger', though, i personally have to give her credit (whatever her motives) for sticking to her guns on this one. i'm not even gonna mention how i feel about rove on this one, but that aside, i think the supreme courts decision on this is ridiculous and have yet to hear a good argument to the contrary.

how is this situation different from attorney client privilege or doctor patient confidentiality? the source (assuming he or she existed) revealed something on the condition that he or she would remain anonymous. i can think of several reasons why someone would wish to remain invisible to the public. and now, because of this precedent, a reporter can't quite promise that anonymity with the solidity of the past.

thanks to the brave (whether selfish or not) actions of judy miller 'taking the bullet' for journalism, i s'pose one could make going to jail part of the promise, but what happens when they raise the sentence?

to the other commenters:

i think we all know that reporters prolly didn't give the orders. all the reporters did is do what reporters do--namely, hype up whatever topic is floating around like their job depends on it, and introduce whatever new, juicy new point of debate they can stir up.

the sad fact of the matter is that the 'liberal media' tends to take quite a conservative view these days, _skewing_ the truth as they need to in order to fit the demands of their corporate advertising base.

because of this model, mainstream media agencies make money that is more or less directly proportional to the ratings they generate (and consequent ad revenue they pull in based on those ratings).

if the corporate entity (and it's allied entities) which is paying millions for some of the ad spots on one of these media outlets doesn't like the view(s) expressed on said outlet, the outlet either complies or ceases to receive funding.

that kind of power tends to have the funny little ability to make people say (or not say) things they normally would. it makes people lose their jobs (and allows someone else to sell out...er, step up to the challenge of filling So-and-so's shoes).

now, don't get me wrong, here. not all media is bad. i find many, many interesting, insightful, and educated points of view on everything going on in the mainstream media (and more than you would ever realize that's not mainstream, but deserves to be...) from all kinds of sources.

but i find these great sources because i am always looking for them. there are a lot of great articles and reports and other sources of info, but much of it is not on the automatic stuff that gets piped into our faces whether we want it or not. most of that tends to be so heavily influenced by one point of view or another that you could pretty much call it propaganda.

i stress again--not all of it. and by no means is all indy media saintly, informed, and correct. there are some seriously malformed points of view out there, but that's why it's so important for us to, as citizens, educate ourselves. we need to look at all sides (or at least as many as we possibly can) and make up our own minds. we need to be aware of our world, and not just take what we're told at face value.

and when we see something wrong we need to speak our minds. do something about it. change the world.

jake, i think maybe she would look good in stripes (or maybe something in a nice, orange dayglo).

and i know i've been going on and on and this is only s'posed be be a comment, but why the hell would somebody in the whitehouse or otherwise even _be_ in a position to compromise an undercover agent? either the national intelligence system has just dramatically illustrated a massive flaw (i.e. an outside source leaking a name) in the way the system works, or else an internal source leaked the name (in which case everybody's looking at the wrong person). i dunno, but not everything about this story seems to add up.

anyhow, i'm gonna stop now, before i burst a blood vessel.

--cid

http://cidviscous.blogspot.com

boilerplate

boilerplate the autonomous robot? *shrugs*

--cid

2005-07-16

kewl (is it k00l to spell cool so koo'?) nooz site

sorry. it's late (er, early?). i'm tired.

i just found this news and reference portal thingy and i didn't wanna lose the url b4 i hadda chance to check it out.

--cid

2005-07-15

crystal clear computing can create cool concepts

wired magazine did a page about new transparent tft technology.

a mixture of tin and zinc oxides, this new process allows 'spray-on' synthesis of the virtually clear semiconductors, which according to the article, are 'flexible and durable as plastic garbage bags'.

and they're CLEAR!! that's _SO_ kool...

and they're also s'posed to be heat resistant and way cheap, to boot. i hope the industry doesn't putz around with it's collective thumb up it's proverbial bum, because i want transparent, full-colour (and luminescent, if it's not too much to ask) computer power as soon as i can.

--cid

some more tft info:

transparent screens
3d displays
hosono
more hosono
slowly, but surely
home project

0wn yourself

the rock whores?

rock whores? well, it's a funny pic, anyhow...

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

contacting the congress

i just stumbled on a site called contacting the congress. it's maintained by a guy named juan cabanela, and juan, my hat is off to you, sir.

sites like this illustrate the important and useful benefits we can reap through free flow of information. i know, i'm sounding a little redundant, but i think we forget how much information is out there, just chillin' at our fingertips, waiting to be queried.

i think we forget that for the people to have power, it takes them bonding together and actually _doing_ something. speaking our minds.

food for thought, anyhow. and if you've got something to say to _your_ congressman, now you can.

--cid

eff still doing good things

you can now use this form provided by the electronic frontier foundation to express to your reps how you feel about the digital media consumers' rights act (dmcra, hr 1201).

laws like this--those which _protect_ the rights of citizens need our support. this one mostly deals with labeling practices and fair use (which has been trampled as of late).

make your voice heard.

--cid

0wn yourself

chick silhouette

chick silhouette

i took an old snippet of a photo i found, reconstructed her arms and head, cleaned it up and resized it, then added the tats and border. feel free to use it or post it or link to it or whatever. if you do, i'd appreciate you throwing a link or a shout my way, but whatever...

--cid

javascript length unit converter





centimeters = 1 centimeters





1


this free script generously provided by avaScript kit


javascript temperature conversion




Fahrenheit:


Celsius:
 
Kelvin:
 



david lazarus shows how privacy is easy to breach

this article by david lazarus talks about how the rove/plame scandal the whitehouse is currently trying to figure out how to wriggle out of highlights how easy it is to tap into some of these vast databases that exist. a good read.

we, as citizens, need to be concerned with how our data is being treated. and we need to watch the creation of new databases, such as the one it would take to run the real id act (which, if you don't know about, you should read about).

it bears watching, folks.

--cid

0wn your country

damn, redmond. can't you stay outta the headlines? (or at least be in for a good reason?)

schlasch daught (/.)
longhorn's gonna check your hardware for drm support. in other words, it scans your machine and if you don't have compliant hardware (as determined by windows) then your media simply won't play.

*lowers head and sighs*

when is there going to be a corporation that thinks of its customers as people instead of numbers?

--cid

0wn yourself

micro$oft nails down exclusive marvel rights on the three-sixty

more from the technewsworld crew--i know. i just can't help myself.

microsoft announced a deal giving them exclusive rights to use marvel comics characters on the upcoming xbox 360 console.

--cid

opera to s'port integral bittorrent functionality

this article touts some interesting info. opera web browser is s'posed to include native support for bittorrent.

looks pretty sweet to me. if i 'member correctly, opera comes in two flavours--ad-supported 'freeware' version and an ad-free retail version. kinda cool of them, in a capitalistic sort of way. i like choices. i like bittorrent, too. good job, opera.

--cid

good luck stank dawg!! u will be missed!!

binrev radio had a bittersweet day with episode 104. good times and bad times. gotta give congratulations for two years of great shows, and i'm glad that the other ddp members are gonna carry the torch.

stank, you've done some great things, your presence will be missed, but i hope whatever's going on irl does well for you, and i hope that you won't be a complete stranger to the scene.

good luck, buddy.

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

2005-07-14

oth - (off teh hook)

2600's off the hook july '05 brought up some good points last night.

go check it out.

--cidViscous

nerdTV

all right pbs nerds--you've got my attention.

--cid

easier hydrogen? go, signa, go!!

slashdot pointed me at c|net 's (news dot com dot com--wtf?), which pointed me at a ny company called signa who are extracting hydrogen more efficiently with a sodium/silica gel (maybe even crystal silicates) to control the extraction process (to prevent ka-boooms).

and so far it looks good. yay for hydrogen.

now, let's see some good (and affordable) fuel cells and some canned hydrogen at the store. woo-hoo!

--cid

social networks

the guardian comes up with this one--foaf meets degrees of kevin bacon (or whatever it's called).

an interesting read.

--cid

voip over hotspots

now this is cool.

i'm envisioning a cell-phone sized wi-fi powered handset that uses voip to give you great rates. hotspots everywhere, and maybe a stratellite or something similar to fill in the gaps between.

the future's looking brighter already..

--cid

the gop (pronounced: gawp) defending their douchebag

according to the washington post, the good ol' grand old republican party are lashing out in defense of karl rove.

i dunno.

i'm still wondering why a cia operative is personally doing briefings to some schmuck like rove, anyhow. that's not very security conscious.

the whole point of a secret operative is to keep them _secret_, no? if she were suspected, she could easily be followed and surveyed, and colour me cynical, but i think it would be pretty damned suspicious to be seen cruising up to the whitehouse, don't you?

maybe i'm missing some of the facts here, but it looks like our government dropped the ball in more than one place.

the cia got caught with it's pants down, now someone's gotta pay. and now it looks like karl rove is the man. and elsewhere....

the highest court in the land lived up to their namesake by doing something very high indeed. they took away some more rights. another freedom.

they took away the freedom for a reporter to protect the anonymity of a witness. might as well revoke doctor patient confidentiality and nicks attorney client privilege while you're at it, guys.

who cares if these revealed sources become targets? who cares if the truth goes untold because someone's too scared they're gonna end up in the spotlight? who cares?

in spite of whatever judy miller might've written, done or said in the past, you've got to give her credit for sticking with her morals on this. that's balls.

but now she's in prison, the presidential cabinet is scrambling to damage control, and the whole thing stinks! it sets another bad precedent.

guys, i know i rant a lot, but can't i just be honest for a moment, here? i know i'm always down on everything and conspiracy theory this, and there go our rights that and whatever. but i love this country.

and dammit, it's our country. if we're not gonna make it better, then who will? i'll try to find some more ways i can make the world better, and i'll try to find some happier things to write about.

--cid

oh, yeah--douchebag!!
---------------------
0wn yourself

2005-07-13

sasser author gets off easy-style...

the d00d who authored the sasser worm got probation because he was only seventeen when he wrote it (though he apparently released it on his eighteenth birthday).

now, call me crazy, but shouldn't it be based more on his intent than his age? proofs of concept and experiments that get out of hand are one thing, but deliberately trying to take down as many boxes and cause as much havoc as possible are quite another.

don't get me wrong, here, either. from what i've read about the case, the sentence seems pretty fair to me. and believe me, we need more level-headed, educated people when it comes to handling 'computer crime', if that's what you wanna call it. i mean, half the people making laws and deciding cases don't truly understand the technologies and situations they're making decisions on. education is what we need.

there's something else about this case that doesn't quite sit right with me--microsoft.

whoever narced jaschan out apparently did so because of a $250,000 reward from the redmond beast. now, that's all well and good, but they're obscuring the point.

and that is, a patch existed for the exploit sasser used. in fact, according to them, the patch was out first. all people hadda do was install it.

this is nothing new. systems will _always_ have flaws and someone will _ALWAYS_ find these flaws. that's just the way it is (until someone comes up with a perfect computer program and a perfect computer to run it on...).

hiding these exploits, keeping them quiet, pretending they don't exist does not solve anything. in fact, it's quite the opposite. that knowledge has to be made available. solutions have to be synthesized and implemented quickly.

so-called 'underground' or 'hacker' media ('zines, mailing lists, irc channels, internet radio) do a lot when it comes to getting the word out, and educating people. some sources have good intentions, some have less-than-benevolent motivations, but the point is, they're getting the knowledge out in the hands of the people. and that's what's important.

just because some 'sploit might be unknown to the general public doesn't make anybody any more secure. _somebody_ still knows about it, and in the mean time, that knowledge can be used to attack systems (or create worms, scripts, and virii which, in turn, attack even more systems on an exponential scale).

now, once that happens, somebody's gonna figure out what's going on and how to stop it, but by then the damage is done.

by getting the word out as soon as possible, more minds can get involved, a solution can be formulated more quicly, and public awareness is raised (offering an extra layer of protection in the form of 'common sense' often missing from security portfolios these days).

anyhow, i digress.

if he was less-than-malicious, at least his life's not wrecked (and if he was just doing it to be a dick, then i guess he just got off easy..), as they tried him as a minor.

but, i still feel uneasy about it. what's the difference between 17 and 18, really? i know plenty of minors who have their shit together better than some of the forty year olds i know.

i just don't know about the whole 'tried as a minor' thing. i mean, what kind of message does that send to kids? society on the whole doesn't treat the underage portion of the population with enough respect and understanding.

kids are people, just like everybody else. maybe they haven't learned as much, or conformed to as many of the social norms and rules as an 'adult', but whatever. kids are effing smart.

i'm gonna shut up now.

--cid

0wn yourself

lugRadio, ba-by!!

so, i just found lug radio--underground linux user group nerd based internet radio and i'm stoked.

shouts, lug.

--cid

2005-07-12

i'm glad i waited..

i'm glad i waited to write anything about this, because i'm mad. and i was madder not too long ago.

rove's lawyer said that he talked about plame, but didn't name her.

now we're headhunting, as we should be, i s'pose. but rather than hanging ourselves a scapegoat to make us all feel better (okay, maybe scapegoat's the wrong word--traitor? saboteur?), we should be addressing the underlying problems with the situation.

1. and i believe it has been dismissed too soon--judy miller went to jail to protect her witness. that, in and of itself, says a lot about her. i've gotta give her shouts for that. capitalistic warmonger she may be, but at least she's sticking to her journalistic guns here.

2. what was some whitehouse douchebag like rove doing knowing cia secrets in the first place? if we can't trust the people who are s'posed to be running this country, what are we going to do?

3. what does all of this say to the person who's waivering on coming forward with the info they know. really it all comes back on the citizens. it's our country, we're the ones (as a whole) who make everything go 'round. we're ultimately the ones who have the power (though most of us don't realize it). precedents are being made, here, and i don't want to think about a world where i can't speak my voice and expose the injustices i see for fear of going to jail. i guess anonymous is going to have a whole new meaning...

--cid

think about your world

dot mobi

heard about .mobi yet? dot info, i like--great idea. dot triple x? *shrugs* eh.. who cares? they're gonna go where they want (and if you force them to move, it opens up the problem of 'how do we draw the line for what's pr0n and what's not?'). dot biz is good. dot art. dot whatever.

for the most part, i'm all about it--more is better. but dot mobi just doesn't seem like a good idea. why? well, first off, i think that sites that have different versions (e.g. html regs and mobile (wml)) shouldn't have to register and maintain two domains. content management systems allow webmasters to make one page which is automatically served up as a mobile of regular version, depending on who's requesting it. no need.

and second, mobile devices are making leaps and bounds. very soon, wml won't really be necessary. we need to concentrate more on cms and network technologies, and bringing mobile products and services up to speed. a new .mobi domain doesn't really fix anything. doesn't hurt anything, either, but, you get the point.

tools like rss can be used to still deliver content even when there's not a fully featured client. like reading the headlines via text messaging, for example.

hopefully, the industry will figure this out soon. late.

--cid

hp--speaking softly, still, but how big is their stick?

i know, i know, but there's this great article in tnw about hp and how their silently (but quickly) creeping in on new fronts that one wouldn't have expected from them a few years ago.

i.e. their new camera lines (which are surprisingly good, for the most part) and even hd tv's, believe it or not. they bear some watching in the near future.

--cid

0wn yourself

concerned parents protest gta san andreas hidden sex scenes

okay, i'm sure you've heard about this by now. grand theft auto:san andreas is a pretty rough game. it's clearly not for most kids ('specially not the younger ones) and thus, if rockstar wants to put a little grown-up easter egg in the game, it's their business. it shouldn't be a problem, 'cause parents shouldn't let their kids have this game in the first place, and adults who don't wanna see this kind of thing just don't have to buy it. damn.

and even if the dood who made the patch isn't telling the truth and it does add content, not simply unlock or alter the existing game data (which i doubt) i still don't see the problem--if you don't like it, don't buy it. if you don't want your kids to play it, don't let them.

i'm gonna stop this short or else i'll get fired up. please, lemme know what you think...

--cid

mirror, mirror in the hole?

researchers at humbolt university have been theorizing about how spinning black holes could act as lenses (and even mirrors!) by bending and pulling light in strange ways.

they made some images of jupiter warped by their gravitational constructs to illustrate their point. cool stuff.

they also brought up the idea that because a spinning black hole would essentially be pulling part of space right along with it (the effect is known as frame dragging), light waves travelling in opposition to the rotation, close to the event horizon would be very close to the break even point. some wouldn't make the cut and would get dragged back from the direction they started, so theoretically an observer at a certain (very, very close mind you) point in space, relative to the black hole, gravity would act as a 'mirror' flinging your own light waves right back at you.

food for thought, neh?

--cid Viscous

0wn yourself

2005-07-11

c0nnected 2 cid Viscous

c0nnected 2 cid Viscous

there's just too much unhappy nonsense in the news right now for me to even think clearly about it, much less write anything useful. the whitehouse is readying itself for supreme court vacancies--the way things have been going, i'm almost okay with the vacancies. i'm sure you heard about the sicko who used his daughter as a shield in a gunfight. the democrats want rove fired (i'd say something now, but i'm still collecting my thoughts--i'm so mad about this whole thing that...never mind. you'll hear about it soon enough). and we're still calling for ppl to give up the war criminals who were responsible for srebrenica genocide. and israel is gonna hit us up for more money, or so the headlines are saying.

a fun day, eh?

--cid

2005-07-10

new and old--what the hack?!?

the what the hack! conference is coming up in the netherlands soon. if you haven't heard of it, what the hack! is an outdoor hacking conference (see defcon (which is also this month) and h.o.p.e. (hackers on planet earth))

and the final issue of phrack, #63, is s'posed to be coming out this month, too.

the good times and the bad...

--cid

0wn yourself

2005-07-08

teleportation now?

space dot com is talking about teleportation again. talking to a guy named david darling--this one not this one.

keep your eyes on these guys. between quantum computing and matter replication lie some interesting possibilities.

--cid

top ten comet crash pix

here's the deep impact program's best ten crash pictures. have fun.

--cid

0wn your solar system.

xGTM--narrowband highspeed wireless

there's another new wireless up and comer touting narrow band high speed wireless technology.

xG. too early to know how it'll pan out. go check it out.

--cid Viscous

aon by cisco

cisco's trying to make the network smarter.

and i'm watching.

--cid

welsh d00d caught selling modded xboxes with warez gamez

did u hear about the welsh do0d who got busted selling modded xbox consoles? i guess he was slapping a mod chip in, swapping the hard drives for a bigger one with 80 cracked games, and selling them on the global interweb.

for like $450. sounds like a pretty good deal to me. why can't sony and microsoft give us prices like that?

--cid

mpaa gets sucked into media gestalt they stirred up

it's nice to see people fighting back. see what happens, mpaa? you can't act like pouting, tattling adolescents and not expect the public to find out anymore. there's got to be a better solution.

you too, riaa. you need to listen to your customers, not shit on them.

go check out the eff everybody.

--cid

0wn yourself

Technology News: Politics: Battle Over Supreme Court Already Raging on the Net

people are already debating the nominee to replace sandra day o'conner.

after some of the supreme court's recent decisions, i do feel we could use a change.

on the other hand, i'm not sure i would trust bush to nominate anyone at this point.

big decisions. changes. lemme know what you think....

--cid

motorola and sprint? wiMax

oh, yeah--motorola and sprint working on a wimax deal.

interesting times...

--cidViscous

pimp the efficient eco ride

cnn reported the new eco car, purported to be more efficient than a light bulb.

now, i realize that thirty miles per hour is lame, and i realize that the petrol companies and car makers prolly won't allow this to make it to the streets, but i still gotta give shouts for ppl getting technology out there.

--cid

keep your eyes on motorola and opera

opera and motorola look like they're getting together. in fact, opera's been whoring itself around the industry, talking with big boys such as toshiba to slap the opera browser on their new camera phone. not to mention kyocera.

might not be such a bad thing. opera's not a bad browser, from what i've heard. i haven't used it in a few versions, but it was lightning fast then, and i hear it's just as razor sharp these days.

i'm just waiting to see if these mobile opera versions will handle real html, or just the wap sites. *shrugs*

guess we'll see.

--cid

0wn your fone

veritas buffer overflow 'tack

veritas has a new vulnerability (vuln), a buffer overrun (overflow) 'sploit. interesting.

--cid

always c the world with the eyes of a n00b.

2005-07-06

yay to the eu!!

well, the european union voted to strike down the software patent bill.

good for you, eu.

--cid

2005-07-05

c0nnected 2 cid Viscous

university of oregon has an english translation of 'the book of the courtier', which is the firsthand account of life in a renaissance court as well as being a guide to the life of a polymath.

i dunno about you, but i'm excited.

--cid

make your 0wn renaissance.

2005-07-04

seems like it's uphill, to me...

connected 2 cidViscous

the site downhill battle has some good info. they're all about making a better music industry.

the time is coming soon when the music industry (in the form it's existed for years) will have to change. artists and musicians get raw deals from the big companies. technology is exploding. it's here, now.

people can buy a computer and some home audio equipment and press an album on par (some would disagree) with 'professional' label records. people have realized this.

people are also starting to realize that there's a lot of media out there, and if you have something to say, it's relatively easy to get it out there, get read or listened to or looked at or played or whatever. there are simply too many options out there for us to allow one voice (e.g. clearchannel) to tell us who's kool, or what to listen to (over and over and over again).

so, anyway, before i get lost on a rant, i'll shut up. go out and find new media. turn off the tv. get off the clearchannel stations. open your eyes.

there's a lot of good stuff out there. check the am dial, buy a shortwave, check out pbs, get a scanner, watch video on the internet, listen to podcasts (i know, i know) and internet radio shows, read. read. my god, i can't emphasize that enough. america needs to read.

go for a walk, watch a play, be in a play, WRITE a play, draw a picture, go to the museum there is _so_ much knowledge and culture and wonderousness out there. take part.

it's becoming clear that the industry is going to have to change. it's just too easy to distribute media. perfect digital copies can be downloaded for minimal resources (an internet connection and some blank discs?). nobody can seem to agree with anybody else, but one thing's for sure, the technology is not just going to go away. it's only going to build on itself, to become more connected, there will be more and more choices and it will become easier and easier to find new things. people are going to be exposed to this 'new media' and i'm ecstatic.

in the famous words of stank dawg (and many country dwellers b4 him)--you can't put the shit back in the horse.

--cid

and some indy media links....

zearle
mp3 dot com
off the hook
basenet radio
gameradio
radio freek america
binary revolution radio
mc chris
pure pwnage
thebroken

or use your favourite search engine

--cid

hackerMedia - vide0, rad10, d0cs, links, etc.

hackerMedia--soak it up...

scanning the medfiles of 20,000,000 people?

harvard has a project going to scan millions of medical files with an artificial intelligence program.

the idea behind it is to trace down the common roots of some major health care issues (conditions, diseases, syndromes, whatever).

i guess i like the thought of a computer going through my personal medical history better than the thought of some _person_ looking through there. *shrugs* here's hoping they figure some of this stuff out.

--cid

well, they hit it

so, i've been talking about it for awhile. nasa launched six months ago, and they hit it.

for those who haven't heard, yet, nasa shot out a probe like six months ago. this probe lined itself up with tempel 1 (a comet in our solar system) and then released the second part of itself, the impactor, to smash into the side of this comet at like 23,000 miles per hour.

and they hit their target.

now, to some of you that might not sound impressive. you might say, 'well, comets are big--that's like hitting a barn wall.' and to those people i would say that most of them have never flown a remote-controlled airplane, much less a remote controlled spacecraft (doing 23K mph).

at least they hit the damn thing. here's hoping they'll learn a lot because of it. oh, and you can see the flash video here.

--cid

2005-07-03

dug dig d00d

so i've been checking out DIG magazine. i like the art. the more indy media we get out there, the better.

--cid

as dual says, be the media

2005-07-02

the phone company. and _the_ cable company.

well, thanks to the supreme court, looks like we're still in for government endorsed monopolies for a while longer.

they ruled that cable companies don't have to lease their infrastructure to competitors the way telecommunications companies have to do.

i don't understand how they don't understand. it's all the same thing, these days. it doesn't matter whether you're watching tv on your phone line or talking to mom over your cable, it's all the same thing.

internet. phones. voice, data, broadband, whatever.

however you wanna slice it, these companies all do the same things, now. everybody needs to be held to the same rules and standards. the playing field needs to be leveled.

--cid

0wn yourself

doj and the bush crackdown on pirates--arrrrrrrrgh!!

president bush has signed a law recently to try and stop movie and music pirating.

the riaa and the mpaa rejoice.

this new law gives up to 10 years in prison for pre-releasing a movie. in fact, i'd almost say, if one was contemplating entering a life of crime and only needed to pick a profession, it would almost be a safer bet to be a sex offender. most of the sentences don't seem quite as harsh.

quite a country we live in.

--cid