0wn yourself

small steps (a minor social hack for democracy)

2007-08-20T16:19:00.000-07:00

next time you buy a product that doesn't live up to its promises, especially a small one, take it back. something you would normally just live with instead of complaining about, not want to make a fuss--take it back.

not for the five bucks. not for the chance to be mean to some salesclerk (unless it happens to be the little fucker who lied to you to get you to buy the damned cell phone in the first place), but for another reason entirely.

the chance to exercise your democratic power through your purchasing power.

whether you're poor or affluent, you (likely) still have _some_ amount of money flowing through your possession, and by taking the trouble to make your purchases count in exactly the way you want them to can help (especially when combined in aggregate with the millions of other people (some of whom are making informed and conscious decisions as well)) to apply pressure for positive change in the right areas.

and then explain (if you have have the opportunity) exactly why you are taking pains to verify just where your money is going. this way, the offending entity gets the chance to experience a real opinion, and others get exposed to this meme in practice (and possibly start being more conscious of _their_ purchases as well).

the other added benefit of this practice is that it simultaneously helps to improve and increase your willpower and self-discipline.

-cid

0wn yourself

why do we fall?

2007-07-02T11:19:00.000-07:00

so that we can learn to pick ourselves up. okay, i'm sorry. i just hadda say it.

anywho, the old cliché about learning more from a failure than a success seems to have a new study to back it up.

researchers found a much more rapid response from the brain when stimuli were shown which had previously led to errors. the brain seems to have a mechanism for flagging things that have caused it trouble in the past.

it's nice when science agrees with folk sayings.

anyway, some food for thought...

--cid

0wn yourself

what i want to see...

2007-05-01T17:00:00.000-07:00

0what i want to see....

i want to see more mom and pop shops.

i want to see more flea markets and more swap meets.

i want to see pollution-free, automated power plants.

i want to see automated, generic factories that can make a million exact copies or a million different variations in the same amount of time.

i want to see every piece of menial human labour that still has to get done relegated to the past by reliable, inexpensive or free technology.

i wanna see more clubs meeting up to talk about ideas and communicate.

i want to see pioneers living on the moon and then mars and then a thousand other worlds.

i want to see a vast, interconnected public transportation system.

i want to see people putting forth their energies with the intention to make something better for the world.

i want to see artists painting and sketching in the streets and the parks, and children under trees, reading.

i want to see strangers mingling with each other, both teaching and learning and always sharing the experience of life and how we all perceive it differently.

i want to see real, regular people in politics, instead of politicians.

i want to see multinational corporations evolving into benevolent institutions of education and social sustenance, or fade away into the past, no longer applicable.

i want to see underwater cities and cities in the clouds.

i want to see generational space vehicles, heading off to see what might be out there.

i want to see a technology to nullify the danger of nuclear and biological and chemical weapons, and i want to see education and communication and strong community ties and better thought and discusssion given to the social infrastructure to deal with all of these threats in the mean time.

i want to see stronger local governments.

i want to see a more transparent federal government.

i want to see the general populace break free of the influences of the so-called engines of apathy and distraction and take a look at themselves, each other and this world we're all living in.

i want to see the country around me from the top of a mountain and to see the horizon in every direction from the middle of the ocean.

i want to see the earth from orbit.

i want to see a public transit system that includes destinations around the solar system.

i want to see free education for anybody who desires it.

i want to see people who desire it.

i want to see the world as a good world, as it could be.

i want to see if aliens exist, and if they do, i wanna see what they're like.

i want to see a cure for cancer and aids and bird flu and everything in between.

i want to see god.

i want to see people who do the work they do simply because they want to, rather than because they have to for whatever reasons.

i want to see more cops and doctors who just want to help people and cooks who like to just like cook and to see people enjoy their food and toymakers who make toys and games simply because they like to see children (or anybody, really) enjoying the toys and games that they produced.

i want to see engineers and inventors who build the better mousetrap to catch more mice, not to market and get rich.

i want to see more hackers and tinkerers.

i want to see the open source model applied to more things than software.

i want to see the solution to the problems.

i want to see m-theory succeed as the theory of everything.

i want to see rechargeable batteries that can be recharged indefinitely.

i want to see waterproof and shockproof electronics.

i want to see neural interfaces.

i want to see independent media explode.

i want to see millions of blogs and independent newspapers and short stories and novels and video shows and movies and audio shows and video games and new sorts of media that haven't even been thought of yet all being shared and adding to this wonderful stew of human culture that we have at our disposal.

i want to see society pulling together to spread the resources around in the best ways for the most people, rather than the abnormal and unnatural concentrations of wealth and power that abound today.

i want to see star trek come to life as a model for social behaviour and structure.

i want to see everybody's crazy ideas, pick out the best ones and stick them all together.

i want to see the ubiquitous exemplification of 'the right thing'.

i want to see a new renaissance.

google stands up to viacom

2007-05-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

google is being sued over youtube, which they bought to go along with their google video project.

viacom is blaming google for all of the copyrighted material that's made it onto youtube (not to mention pretty much every other media sharing site on the internet).

google says they can't be held responsible for the actions of their users without taking away all of the good, legitimate uses of the youtube service as well. they also are pointing out the differences between this situation and the filesharing case that got shot down by the supreme court (saying that it's different because the file sharing services were encouraging users to disseminate copyrighted materials, while youtube offers 'substantial non-infringing use'.

this case is both interesting and important for a number of reasons.

it's interesting because viacom's going after the biggest dog first. if they win this case, you can bet that it'll be open season on all of the other video distribution services.

the new media distribution outlets the internet provides people with an unprecedented capacity to share information and communicate. the resulting side effect of this is that media distribution industries (yes, entire industries) are basically no longer necessary (or even desired, depending on where you're standing).

media channels have pretty much always been out of the hands of mortals. new technologies are either prohibitively expensive or they're locked down by big business or the law as soon as they pop up.

new media tech scares the bejeezus out of those in control of current media outlets--printing presses, radio, tv, cd's, dvd's--they've all been held tightly under the control of a few major powers (at least at first).

and as new developments occur, those in power (seeing a possible end to that power) have responded to defend themselves. they've had an amazing amount of legal pull over the years, as well.

the internet supersedes all the previous forms of media transmission all at once. print, audio, and video can be combined in powerful new ways, and then transmitted across the globe very rapidly, and to more than one end point.

all without the help from any 'distribution industry'--except the internet infrastructure itself.

even looking specifically at this case--youtube is not really the issue, here. take the youtube infrastructure out of the equation--all they are really doing is making it easier to distribute media by giving you one centralized location to upload stuff and find stuff. that doesn't change the fact that the internet inherently has this ability.

without sites like youtube, one can still broadcast pretty much any information they have available to just about anywhere else on the internet. this just isn't going to go away.

if viacom does win this case (and even if they go after every other utube-style video sharing service out there, this still doesn't change the fact that the internet still has the built-in ability to move information from any point on the net to any (other number of) point(s) rapidly and efficiently.

the bittorrent protocol can more or less replace the distribution infrastructure that google's video service provides (by using the bandwidth of those participating in the downloads (and incidentally adds a kind of natural moderation--it's easier and faster to get the more popular files in a bittorrent swarm), and as far as providing a centralized place to find all the torrents in the first place, we've only to look at existing tracker sites--frequently, they are hosted in countries where the laws don't protect copyrights (or, as an alternative, could be hosted through privacy obfuscation filter services--i.e. tor/privoxy or things like project freenet).

i hope it doesn't ever come to this, but if it does, the internet is ready.

as far as i can tell, the only way to combat these forms of obfuscation would be to look at a large enough section of the internet (all at once) to see where things go in, and where those things come back out--you can't track info as it makes all the hops.

god, this situation is a mess.

this whole free speech/fair use/intellectual property thing is about to explode. people have realized that large portions of the media industry are basically no longer needed. they're essentially middlemen, which the internet very effectively replaces.

the trouble is that these industries (or rather the few people running them) can see this predicament as well, and they don't want to fade into extinction. thus, they're going to do whatever it takes to ensure their survival.

the trouble with _that_ is twofold--they don't seem to care _how_ their survival is maintained, just so long as it is, and they also seem to be very good at getting laws passed. laws which benefit them, not the citizens.

so, i'm not necessarily sure what the best solution is, but i can see all this coming on the horizon and it scares me. at a time when technology puts us in touch with people and information which has never before been possible, when technology should be making our lives easier (making way for more time to explore and tinker with these vast amounts of information and meet these diverse people), a time that should be the beginning of the new renaissance, we're too busy working our asses off to 'make a living'.

i'm sure i'll continue this as time goes by, but i need to stop before i get further off on my tangent here. in the mean time, google, we'll be with you, and to you media bullies, we'll still be here, ready for whatever happens.

in the words of jello biafra--become the media....

--cid

0wn yourself

the green glowing eye

2007-04-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

have i ever told you how much i _love_ the gimp? maybe one of these days i'd like to save up for photoshop, but gimp (gnu image manipulation program) is free (both as in beer and as in speech), is nearly as powerful (not quite the range of filters and no true color space) and is growing steadily (including splitting into several subprojects).

it just amazes me, every time i fire up a good open source/free program, to see what people can make just by cooperating and volunteering their time and energy to an idea.

if you've never used gimp (even if you're hooked on photoshop) you might give it a try some time. you might like it, might find something useful it has to offer, or might find something useful you could offer the gimp community.

--cid

you down with opb?-- other people's breastmilk

2007-04-26T23:02:00.000-07:00

this article talks about the changing patterns (past and present) of breast feeding infants, and specifically about someone other than the biological mother doing the breast feeding.

the article mentions wet nurses, the re-rise of breastfeeding in the us, and cases where it's not possible--e.g. adoption. the article goes on to mention something i've thought about before, but never heard a name applied to--cross-feeding (babies breastfeeding from multiple women).

now, while most of the women mentioned in the post seemed to be doing it more for reasons such as scheduling, but the reason i thought of it was slightly different. when i heard that mothers pass antibodies which help to build the immune systems of infants through breast milk, i immediately thought 'cool, does that mean that if i would have been breastfed by say thirty or forty different women (each with their own various immunities) that i'd have an immune system like wolverine?

just goes to show you how differently people perceive situations.

--cid

0wn yourself

the many or the few?

2007-04-26T21:28:00.000-07:00

slashdot (/.) had a story today that really illustrates the gray area which harbors the current incarnation of intellectual property laws (even the concept itself and the definition of the word is in dispute). shelley batts, a grad student at university of michigan, received legal threats from wiley interscience (one of whose projects she posted about on her blog (retrospectacle (which, incidentally is a very clever name)).

her call to the global internets was met with a rally of online support and the situation quickly resolved itself (apparently, it had all been a misunderstanding...

now, whether this was really all just a simple misunderstanding, or whether this wiley group changed their tune after the topic started to gain some ip (independent press), i could not tell you for certain. but what i can tell you is that this sort of thing is important, because these technological/social/economic pressures are really building and it's gonna come to a head pretty soon.

there've been a lot of crazy scary laws passed the past few years and if we're not careful, some bad decisions will slip by, and a few people will get screwed--no one really pays too much attention. but then that stuff starts getting held up as precedent and case law, and then a whole mess of people start getting screwed. but by then, it very well might be too late.

money seems to be able to make laws that benefit the few instead of the many.

now, like i said--this is just me talking. i wasn't there, and i don't really know what happened for sure or why, but from an external perspective, my first instinct is that the right thing happened for the wrong reason.

and, truth be told, i guess i'm alright with that as long as there's always enough good people in the world (who are paying attention) to make sure that 'the right thing' _does_ happen. anyway, i'd say that this situation definitely turned out to have a good resolution, and that's a good thing.

something to think about.

--cid

0wn yourself

opposition in the the war on 'piracy'

2007-03-24T10:35:00.000-07:00

the disc-sniffing anti-piracy dogs now have a price on their heads. or so sayeth cnn.

i just wonder if this is right way to fix this sort of problem. don't we have other things to worry about?

--cid

0wn yourself

temporal locks

2007-03-20T23:33:00.000-07:00

seriously? temporal locks? how sweet is that?

--cid

in all the wrong ways...

2007-02-28T21:27:00.000-07:00

you might have heard that bittorrent dot com has announced a new modus operandi--they've partnered with major media corporations to transform into a 'new' legitimate channel for distributing media for money.

there are two problems which spring immediately to mind with this scenario. one--with the bittorrent protocol you need to have a good upstream going where you share the pieces of the object being downloaded that you already have with the other people downloading that object (so everybody shares with everybody, all at once--that's how download swarms work), which adds to your bandwidth usage. and two--the effing industry powerhouses are still the ones getting in there and setting the prices and restrictions (and other unnecessary middleman-type behavior).

nobody (well, almost nobody) has a problem with paying the artists they want to support, but who wants to support these tycoons who've had the industry cornered and divided for longer than any of us can prolly remember? i don't.

i think that at one point in time these middlemen (a comparison i'm fond of) were a necessity. you really couldn't get out and touch the whole world unless you had some help. please bear in mind that this in no way excuses some of the practices which evolved in these industries, but this is another matter, i s'pose.

the bittorrent protocol allows for user moderation in a sense. it's self-feeding (almost like a turbo). when a file becomes more popular (and more people are downloading it) then it becomes much easier for everybody to find other users to swap packets with ('cause everybody's downloading the same things) and start getting all the pieces they need ('cause everybody's downloading the same bleeding things).

media of small or infrequent interest is prolly better off with more traditional (http/https/ftp/etc) protocols, but in pretty much any situation where multiple people are going after the same file(s), bittorrent is the modern-day supreme protocol for the job. there's just nothing better (yet, anyhow). makes the most efficient use of bandwidth, runs hashes for verification, supports resumes, etc. and the more people going after it, the better the whole system will work for everybody.

but the question still begs--if this magic protocol is running the show, these aggregator sites for torrents are creating the jumping off point (with search capabilities), the artists are making the media, and it's our (the consumers') bandwidth that's making this a reality, then what do we still need the likes of mtv and paramount for?

there're about six billion creative and vibrant people out there with ideas of their own, many of which have something to say (a few of which are saying it) and the internet brings us all together. what are you going to do now?

--cid

0wn the media distribution channels

what do you do when . . . .

2007-02-25T12:15:00.000-07:00

...you find yourself agreeing with a category who hold values that repulse you?

racism is terrible. it's a horrible concept which should never have been accepted, yet by many it is (whether they admit it (even to themselves) or not). judging people on stereotypes is just as flawed an idea, but ignoring stereotypes is not the answer either.

stereotypes bear a lot of similarity to demographics. one's a word used to describe a science trying to make assumptions about people based on their measurable or observable characteristics (or the various 'groups' to which they belong). the other's a word used to describe a person trying to make assumptions about people based on their measurable or observable characteristics (or the various 'groups' to which they belong).

for better or worse, demographic analysis/stereotyping does work at least in a limited and incomplete fashion. does it work all the time (or with everyone)? no. no way. does this make it right? depends on what you're using it for. should you make decisions based these practices? nope.

when you're making a decision, you want to make the best decision possible, right? that's what demographics are all about, too, right? efficiency. used in marketing, you want to get the biggest return on your investment--get the right message to the largest body of people who will be the most sensitive to your message.

similarly, in day to day life decisions you want to make the best decision you can--and that means taking into consideration all of the information you can acquire about the situation, weight that against the sum of your knowledge about how the universe functions, and then pick the most advantageous choice.

the trouble comes in from two vectors--people making uninformed choices (or choices based on the wrong set of statistics) - and - the behavioral influences of 'being in' a particular 'group' or demographic.

i'll address the the first one first. when you go back to my previous example, and start running certain statistical assumptions through that filter, you can see them ground to logical fallacies (or poorly made decisions based on incomplete or improperly weighted criteria). racism unfortunately jumps back to mind.

making a decision about somebody solely on the colour of their skin or the layout of their dna is a prime example of a stupid decision. there are too many other factors, too much variance within that type of a grouping of a given population to make any kind of good choices. simply put, that's just not nearly enough information to judge a person on.

the other kind of trouble i see is the alteration of behavior based on influence of a group. in other words, changing your behavior (whether restricting actions or causing expansion of actions) in order to 'fit in' to a certain group (or tragically because somebody else placed you in a group and now you feel that's what's expected of you).

and actually, these practices aren't necessarily bad either. if you choose to make certain alterations to your conduct in order to align yourself with a group or idea you believe in and agree with can be both healthy and admirable. but when the group or idea you're trying to emulate is not a good one, you can damage yourself and those around you.

i guess the trick is to know as much as you can, sort it out as logically and level-headed as you know how, and then pick the best choice. easy enough, right?

i know.

but all we can do is keep trying. when we change, let's change for the better, okay? this post is for those who are trying. trying to be better. trying to make the world a little better.

the group that i associate myself with is the group of the like mind--those who are trying.

--cid

0wn yourself

project blackbox

2007-02-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

this is kinda cool. i've always been a fan of modular things. and shouts to aghaster for pointing this out.

project blackbox, by sun microsystems, is basically a datacenter built into a shipping container (i.e. the trailers pulled around by semis).

if all their claims are valid, this is actually a really sweet setup. s'posed to be über energy efficient--it can be easily packed up and taken to just about anywhere. they also say it ranks in the top two hundred supercomputers in the world.

i want one.

*sigh*

--cid

0wn your black box

wal-mart

2007-02-09T12:27:00.000-07:00

looks like walmart's gonna have a class action lawsuit about discrimination based on sex.

hmmm...

i guess we'll see what happens, won't we?

--cid

0wn your evil corporations

a few thoughts on augmented reality

2007-02-09T11:47:00.000-07:00

the convergence of media and communication through technology just keeps becoming more ubiquitous in our lives. augmented reality, or the process of overlaying metadata/alternate data streams over a set of realtime inputs, has rapidly been improving lately.

i mean, when you think about it, it's been around for awhile (at least as long as camcorders have been around--zoom and date/time overlay) and with the advent of more powerful computers (not to mention improvements in search/tracking algorithms) are really providing some powerful new tools.

this short list of projects might give you a few ideas about what some of these cats are doing with this. definitely some interesting possibilities.

howstuffworks has an okay piece on it, too. personally, i'd love to have access to that much data while i'm walking around in the real world.

crazy times we're living in.

--cid

0wn your reality

is she serious?

2007-01-31T12:49:00.001-07:00

is
this girl serious? i just can't tell. you decide.

--cid

0wn yourself

can games improve your spatial perception?

2007-01-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

i've lately been addicted to this game at the wiicade website.

i've often thought about the educational potential of video games, and i think this one might just be good for the old grey matter. i'm not exactly sure what skillset i'm learning here, but it seems to me that to beat these puzzles, you either have to brute force it, or be able to 'see' the solution (i.e. visualize the right possibility).

i'd like to see more examples of games that are engaging and teach you something. maybe i'll write one some time. i'm sure there have to be some good ones out there that i haven't found yet.

-cid

a convergence of ideas + capabilities

2007-01-22T19:18:00.000-07:00

a convergence of several underlying memes, methods, and tools...

rapid development tools
- libraries
- templates
- intuitive ide's
information retrieval tools
- heuristics
- fuzzy logic
- pattern analysis
- indexing
proliferation of metadata (indeed, the metadata abounds, and grows daily...)
- networking
- social networks hooking people up
- collaboration tools
- peer to peer
- distributed computing
open source projects
- volunteer work accomplishes everything
- various reasons for volunteering
  - the challenge
  - desire to help the cause
  - desire to use the finished product/service
  - to enrich mankind
  - to learn
- various levels of participation
  - users (when users send feedback, the development process is enriched
  - users mass use by a lot of people flushes out many circumstances for discovering bugs, etc.
  - developers contribute new code to the project
  - artists contribute media (video, audio, images, etc..)
  - debuggers check the existing code for errors
  - everybody helps spread the meme by word of mouth (telling

i've been thinking, right? sites like ebay, and craigslist, and all the match dot coms all work by hooking people up, right? everybody on there either is looking for something or has something to give, yeah, and these sites just play middle man/connect the dots (whichever you wanna call it).

what if that sort of approach was used on things that make up everyday life?

open source/cooperation/volunteer based cars, satellites, power, food, housing, electronics, etc... kind of a crazy thought, i know, but it seems like it would work (if you could get enough people involved to cover all the required inputs (resources, time, knowledge, skills...)).

--cid

[ 0 w n y o u r s e l f ]

The Legendary Katamari Damacy Super Happy Fun Remix Video

2007-01-17T19:49:00.001-07:00


diy katamari damacy

anti-missile laser beams?

2007-01-17T18:15:00.000-07:00

well, they're starting to install (a test batch) of missile defense system on airliners.

basically, it's a little pod with lasers to interfere with the missiles' guidance system. at least, that's what they're saying. two questions that hop immediately into my mind are what types of guidance systems the anti-missile device will handle (and what about non-guided rockets?) and also, what happens to the miq (missile in question) when it's steered safely away from the plane?

*shrugs*

don't get me wrong, here--i'm all about cool new technology (and let's face it, missile-defense laser pods on the front of jets are pretty cool) but since we live in a world where money runs everything, should this really be a priority (simply because this is almost certainly going to be very, _very_ expensive and that money could go to other more productive uses).

also, depending on the answers to my above questions, how effective is this actually going to be in it's current incarnation? well, we'll just have to keep our eyes open, won't we?

--cid

0wn your anti-missile laser pods

drm--the love child between satan and osama bin laden

2007-01-08T14:07:00.000-07:00

people are getting it. strong words? sure, but they're not too far of a stretch. drm (and all the other forms of intentionally _breaking_ technology to protect someone else's interests) is (are, and will be) very bad (for almost everyone).

--cid

0wn your media

wiimote + looking glass = just what i've been waiting for

2007-01-04T16:51:00.000-07:00

nintendo's wiimote (or wii remote as they insist on calling it) has been hacked. that's right i said hacked. it's nothing new. now i want to see it in conjunction with things like project looking glass.

whether people end up using the third accelerometer for controlling the z axis in a three d environment or not, i don't see this just blowing over. this is frickin' cool, and i think it's gonna continue to get better and more commonplace (as in like possibly maybe replacing or competing with the mouse?).

okay, maybe i'm overestimating the mean dorkiness of the overall internet/nerdy kid/hacker/gamer demographic slice of people who know about this whole wii hacking phenomenon don't know about it yet.

it's a very intuitive method of input as well as being very open ended and robust. bluetooth from across the room and drag, drop, gesture. i think that teh homebrew wii mote thing is going to continue to advance, and we'll probably see some wiimote inspired products aimed specifically at the pc pretty soon, too.

now, granted, the wii remote may not be as useful as a mouse is for more detailed work like image editing in gimp (though, that could be interesting...) but a lot of the detail work is better accomplished with a digital pen/pad setup anyhow. i can think of several powerful command methods that would be perfect for browsing the web or your media collection, reading, file manipulation, etc.

and then like i said--having the third axis in regards to a 3d desktop environment would be terrific. and i think hardware has matured enough to make this possible (i mean, just look at aero). and then, if you _really_ wanted to get crazy, you could track two of them (one in each hand) and you could stretch windows from both sides simultaneously, push them out of your way, and even flip through stacks of them (and, yes, i know these things can all be done with a mouse (or two of them in some cases), but i think in a lot of instances, it would be more comfortable to do with a wiimote-style hid).

i dunno, i think i might be just ranting at this point, so i'll stop, but the possibilities that are here are really exciting. lemme know what you think.

--cid

0wn your human interface device

star trek as a model for social behaviour

2006-12-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

lessons from star trek

so, i'm not sure about this guy, yet, but this page brings up some very good points that i have long expressed myself, though probably not as eloquently as steve here.

it's an interesting read.

--cid

0wn yourself

flash growing on cid???

2006-12-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

is flash growing on me?

okay, if you know me, you know i'm generally not a very big fan of flash, but this is freakin' sweet.

it's a slick little flash applet that picks up feeds from most of the aerial/satellite imagery feeds and lets you swap back and forth between them. _and_ it seems _stable_!! shouts go out to http://www.flashearth.com/ for sure.

--cid

personal restrictions

2006-12-29T18:40:00.000-07:00

here's to removing the restrictions. breaking through the barriers that have stopped me from achieving the things i know i'm capable of.

fear can be a powerful thing, but it can also manifest that power in very subtle ways. the fear of what might happen or what might not happen, what someone might think or say can be a silent deterrent of progress.

apathy, like fear, can also grab us by the insides and prevent our actions. 'oh, well, there's nothing i can do about it anyway, so i might as well just make the best of the situation.' 'well, it doesn't really affect me or my family, so i guess it's not really my problem.'

i feel that i've let myself fall victim to both of these snares, lately, and it's something i intend to overcome. i've got a lot of ideas in me, bursting to come out, and when i let fud and apathy and distraction set in, that's not good for anyone.

it halts my growth, and it prevents anyone from benefiting from whatever it is i have to offer. so, once again, i'm picking myself up and pointing back at (what i believe) is the right direction. looking for the right thing.

if these words mean anything to you--if you've ever felt like you weren't making use of all your capabilities, i hope you can take this knowledge that you're not the only one and reinspire yourself at whatever it is that you do.

'til then.

--cid

trying to 0wn myself

track the satellites

2006-12-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

bitty browser

2006-12-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

trying some google web widget thingies

2006-12-29T01:44:00.000-07:00

pushing each other in every direction at once

2006-12-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

somebody once told me that if every person in china could be coordinated to jump at exactly the same time, they would produce enough force to permanently alter the earth's orbit.

i've never heard any definitive proof on the matter, but inside i always believed it. the society we've built for ourselves promises us so much--stability, security, entertainment. all of these things are made possible through the application of order on a massive scale. society provides certain structures or constructs to achieve certain desirable conditions.

just who the conditions are desired by depends on a lot of things, most notably the motives and understanding of those creating and imposing the social limitations.

in an ideal world, the only social limitations in effect would be those whose pros outweighed their cons. in other words, the only laws would be laws which provided a maximum benefit to the maximum amount of people at a minimum cost to a minimum amount of people. that should be the ultimate goal of any law--fixing whatever required the enactment of a new law in the first place, with as small an amount of harm done as possible. minimum force required. make the most people happy. needs of the many....golden rule--whatever you wanna call it.

in reality, it is not always (or some would say frequently) the goal of the individuals and bodies responsible for governing these social impositions which are supposed to be for the betterment of all mankind, but are all to often invoked (and sadly enforced) for the betterment of only a small part of mankind.

my point in beginning this post was that we all seem to be pushing and pulling in our own selfish directions a lot of the time, but if we could somehow coordinate our efforts to push together for some of the more useful goals, we would be able to accomplish more.

a thought.....

--cid

hail to the mighty mighty ps2p

2006-12-29T00:42:00.000-07:00


somebody (prolly someone much handier with a soldering iron than i) hacked together this little beauty. yes, that _is_ a portable playstation two. drool my hat is off to you sir. --cid just trying to own myself....

cool program

2006-12-15T19:11:00.000-07:00

cool program. that's what the heading on the post said.

i had no idea what i was in for. _this_ is the kind of program i've been waiting for for a while, now. this is something new and fresh added to a layer of the familiar and old. taking two powerful techniques for taking ideas from one persons brain and conveying these ideas to the minds of others.

now need to come tools and techniques to make more complex and more refined drawing/simulations. simulations in three and four dimensions. tools to take the rough human defined drawings and adjust the size/shape/positioning to make it cleaner. oooooh.... i love this stuff, man.

--cid

0wn your computer (and make it do cool things)

garbage in garbage out

2006-09-20T18:05:00.000-07:00

/.'s talking about it. reuters is reporting it. california's suing auto manufacturers for global warming.

hmmmm....

--cid

0wn yourself

ibm open source learning

2006-09-20T18:00:00.000-07:00

share the knowledge. information wants to be free, right? ibm says they think so. i've talked about open course ware from mit before. things like this seem to be good for the future of our species.

i hope these kinds of projects and ideas continue to gain in popularity and depth. open information.

--cid

eff stirring up trouble in washington

2006-09-20T17:05:00.000-07:00

tnw's talking about the eff again. *salute* god bless you boys. (and girls).

--cid

france v. apple - when kingdoms collide

2006-09-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

looks like france is sticking to their guns so far.

apple isn't gonna be happy about this if for no other reason than the precedent it could set.

0wn your music

--cid

female space tourist

2006-09-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

0wn yourself

female space tourist. sweet.

--cid

saddam != al-qaeda

2006-09-13T15:39:00.000-07:00

or so sayeth the cia (as quoted by cnn international. hmm...

not to say that saddam's a nice guy or anything, or that we shouldn't have been over there (for other reasons), but it still kinda makes you think, huh?

--cid

0wn your country

beamer hydrogen seven - it's a start

2006-09-13T15:28:00.000-07:00

bmw announced that it will be releasing a hydrogen powered car. now, it's important to note that this is a hydrogen internal combustion engine, not a fuel cell. but, it's a start.

apparently, it will be able to burn either gasoline or hydrogen, but when running on hydrogen, they claim it will release only vapors, unlike our hydrocarbon spewing, gas-burning mainstays. zero emission would prolly be better for the atmosphere, but like i said it's a start.

at least if we could start switching people to burning hydrogen, we could stop burning oil (which we need for other things).

just a thought.

--cid

hackers steal at&t customers' data

2006-09-03T07:21:00.000-07:00

bull.

here is another blazing example of how the media is only out for entertainment--not real news. and i usually like tech news world. i'm disappointed guys... :(

wanna see what kinds of things _hackers_ have _really_ been up to? go check out the h.o.p.e. conference.

hackers aren't the people who steal credit card numbers (at least not for personal gain--maybe as proof of concept or for pen testing or something). the people who steal credit card numbers are known as thieves or, a more generalized word--criminals.

now, hackers are people just like anyone else--they can be good or bad--but, unless this criminal( or criminals) figured out a clever solution to at&t's security measures--i.e. a hack (used as a clever or elegant solution to a problem)--then this person or persons is hardly a hacker.

if they used somebody else's pre-made hack to commit this caper, then there's a word for that, too--script kiddie.

some people might say that i'm making too big a deal out of this. others might suggest that they agree with me, but that we've already lost the true meaning of the word, but i believe in sticking up for what you believe in.

i also believe that articles like the above mentioned are bad for the general populace as they encourage suspicion of one of our nation's most valuable resources--creative, resourceful free thinking human beings--hackers.

i also believe that tripe like this allows unjust (and dangerous) laws extra leeway in getting passed. 'well, we've gotta stop these digital terrorists, now don't we?'

i give you the paragraph surreptitiously slipped in near the end of this article referring to movements for laws that would make it easier for corporations to conceal these sort of slip ups from their customer base.

i'm gonna stop now before i really get myself worked up, but i hope i've at least made you think a little. whether you agree with me or not, if i've done that then i have succeeded.

--cid

0wn your world

networked thoughts

2006-09-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

ok. round two.

i was reading the beginning of a book the other day--the theory of almost everything: the standard model, the unsung triumph of modern physics--and he said something pretty simple, yet profound.

he was talking about how we understand things on different levels.

and it kind of hit me upside the head. i believe the metaphor he was making involved being able to explain how computers worked by talking about how the electrons flowed in certain order through their electronic pathways to form gates of logic, and how completely useless that model of understanding would be if one were trying to understand an error message from windows nt.

point is, the way we can get our head around things depends not only on the things we're trying to get our heads around, but also on the context of the situation in which the things (and our heads) are currently existing.

part of what i was trying to get out in that last post was that this network model of understanding can connect to several levels (often at once).

this can be very useful. it can also be a great hindrance.

if you can't already tell, i _love_ me some wikipedia. love it. i can seriously get lost in there for _hours_, and have a grand old time while i'm at it. i have learned so much from that site over the years that i don't know what i'd be like without it.

now, i realize that you have to take wikipedia with a very large grain of salt. but, if you keep your wits about you and understand where this stuff is coming from and what it is that you're reading, then it is not only a very rich and entertaining source of information, but a phenomenal jumping off point.

and there's the rub...

i find so many wonderful links to other articles and external sites that before i know it, i'm so off topic that i'm not getting anything done. and worse, i have to choose. it's not just that my attention is drifting from the topic i summoned the wiki world for, but my attention is drifting in _multiple_ directions.

that's the same thing that often happens in the web (and networked environments in general), but i find my interest frequently, and often painfully divided by the little blue trails of wonder when i don't immediately leave a wikipedia article. (and, like i said, i love the 'pedia, so it seemed like a good example...)

but i've been getting this picture in my head of how this paradigm is working and the concept of depth was something i was missing before. i mean, it was there, but i couldn't put it into words.

the network method of communication connects us to many things all at once.

we've got the subject of whatever it is we're talking/thinking/reading about. and we've got related metadata there with it. we've also got linking to other related thoughts and ideas and concepts (all with their own (often overlapping) metadata). but not only do we have this interconnected web of information, but we also have different levels of representing it.

if you take a web-style network topology from a top down view, that's only part of it. four degrees of freedom. these interlinks can keep going infinitely in four separate directions, along the whole plane.

but the concept of different levels of description or understanding add depth to that model.

i'm not quite sure where i'm going with this, but it feels right and i just wanted to get it down before i lost it.

i'll be back for this one.

--cid

0wn yourself

network communication

2006-07-12T11:54:00.000-07:00

a new way of writing?

the advent of decentralized, computer aided communication over networks has changed the way we talk to each other. it's changed the way we collect and process information. and it's done this very quickly (relative to known history).

it's a tough concept to disagree with.

but just how pervasive is this networking idea. how far will it go? how far has it gone already?

i've been hearing a lot of talk lately about the so-called 'semantic web' and network society and bruce sterling's concept of spimes and it's all seeming to point to the same direction.

as we make computers more able to sift through piles of data and sift through it in more productive ways, and scan more content into machine-readable formats, the more content gets interwoven into this web or network.

simultaneously, we (as humans) are adapting to new ways of dealing with all this info (with the help of our newly bolstered computer-powered data crunchers and vast info warehouses) as well as new types of human to human relationships.

physical borders and boundaries don't mean quite the same thing as they used to. the interactions and connections between humans don't always have to work the same as they used to. we can be connected instantly to multiple people (on multiple levels of interaction) in any location (so long as it's attached to the grid) and then pool our resources.

we don't have to come together in the traditional sense to come together in the virtual, networked sense.

and along with this new networked way of looking at the world, with the aid of computers to crunch all the numbers we don't want to crunch, and remember where all the data is that won't fit in our heads anymore, we are getting the side effect of multimedia content presented in a relational way.

take a web page for instance.

a web page is sent to your browser and rendered according to a set of rules and then you get to utilize (or interact) with it.

it's comprised of words, images, audio and video, all of which are independant media types in their own right. but what makes it different than the traditional incarnations these formats took is the metadata and the relationships which are represented.

you get (along with the text/pics/audio/video) to see other sources and the different directions they go, the different things that this content is _related_ to. you also get to see other metadata such as timestamps, location indicators, categories the media falls into, language indicators, the type of platform it was designed to work with. all kinds of extra data which help enrich our understanding of where and how a particular idea (or set of ideas) fits and integrates into the rest of what we know.

by maintaining these relationships and including this metadata in our understanding of what it is we are digesting, we can achieve a new level of depth in our understanding of the actual ideas that we're processing.

'cause let's get right down to brass tacks--that's what communication is about in any form. transferring an idea from one human's brain into some other media type so it can be picked up and ingested by the mind of another.

ideas.

transferring ideas. that's what communication is.

there are other side effects to this new networked, indexed, computer enhanced way of looking at the world and exchanging ideas, but i'm gonna have to revisit this topic. i'm running out of time....

--cid

0wn yourself
0wn your ideas

mram -- mmmmmm....ram....

2006-07-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

mram.

magnetoresistive random access memory.

they say it's fast. it's also nonvolatile. both good things when you're talking about ram. freescale's making it. it seems to be aimed at the mobile market (like most consumer products lately), but i guess we'll see how well it does pretty soon.

--cid

0wn yourself

would dan rather go or stay?

2006-07-12T11:46:00.000-07:00

i'm still not sure what he did to incur the wrath of cbs, but he's going to satellite, it seems.

--cid

energy

2006-07-12T11:37:00.000-07:00

green energy, to be precise.

actually, that wouldn't really be precise at all. but it's a start.

and dammit, at least the concept of 'alternative energy sources' are finally making their way into the spotlight. it apparently took soaring oil prices to make the general populace realize that burning oil and coal isn't a good thing.

will we do something about it now that this is becoming a buzzword?

*shrugs*

who knows?

but articles like this one give me at least a little hope. it seems as if we might finally be paying attention to this issue (prolly for the wrong reasons, but hey--a means to an end, no?).

whether you're looking for clean energy, green energy, energy independence, the furthering of technology, hedging your bets by diversifying what methods we get our power from or any other number of reasons, looking at different sources and methods of power needs to be done, and it needs to be done soon.

--cid

0wn your energy

so long syd....

2006-07-12T11:35:00.000-07:00

syd barrett (of pink floyd) has passed away.

you'll be missed, syd.

--cid

a narrow miss....

2006-07-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

...relatively speaking.

sure, we saw the asteroid coming. but if it was headed for impact rather than a near miss, would we have realized with enough time to do anything about it?

--cid

we need to spread

2006-06-13T13:45:00.000-07:00

i love stephen hawking. the guy's a genius.

and he always seems to have some good points. this time, it's a point i've talked about before. humanity needs to spread out.

whether it's nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, a meteor or whatever, it greatly raises our odds of survival.

the more self-sufficient human civilizations that we can set up, and the more places we can do it in, the better our chances of species survival.

to paraphrase orson scott card, we need to spread ourselves over a thousand worlds and make peace with each other, and we'll be all but impossible to destroy.

keep asking questions...

--cid

say it ain't so

2006-06-13T11:11:00.000-07:00

could it be true?

so far it's just a rumor--apple merging with nintendo?

apple's a company i've got mixed feelings about, but nintendo has more or less stayed true to its consumer base. they've kept their roots strong, they didn't dick people over with prices, and they've continued to strive for creative new ways of interacting with games (motion controllers in the wii, touchscreen on the ds).

while, technologically speaking, i am an apple fan, and i'll even give them style points, but idealogically, i haven't felt at home with an apple product in a long time.

from a marketing standpoint, i think this hypothetical merger could do the nintendo name some good, but i guess that's what worries me. apple is a marketing machine and i shudder to think what would become of nintendo if this happens.

i guess we'll just have to wait and see.

--cid

0wn your console

china accuses the i triple e of strongarming

2006-06-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

so, wi-fi's an open book, and wep's like using a proverbial slice of swiss to stop others from reading your book.

well, there're a couple of new standards to take over where wep fell short, but not everybody can seem to agree.

in fact, china just walked out of talks about their wireless encryption standard, wapi. they said that the ieee (i triple e) uses dirty tactics to push their standards. they said that since the talks clearly weren't really accomplishing anything, the whole setup was unfair, and there was no point in continuing.

*shrugs*

--cid

every day a step closer

2006-06-07T10:38:00.001-07:00

we're (at least some of us) always struggling to refine our picture of the universe and how it works. every new little thing we learn helps to shape our overall understanding of this reality we live in.

space dot com has an interesting article recently talking about the new info being compiled on andromeda. as we study other galaxies, we gain tools which assist our understanding of the way galaxies move and work--including our own.

we've got some relatively close cosmic neighbors to study, but these are all local astronomical phenomena. it's kind of tough to get a good view of our own galaxy since we're right down in it. kind of a 'forest for the trees' thing.

but by figuring out how lots of _other_ galaxies do their thing, we can get some ammo to help figure out what's happening in our neck of the woods.

keep learning.

--cid

0wn yourself

every day a step closer

2006-06-07T10:38:00.000-07:00

some wise words about sony

2006-06-05T10:40:00.000-07:00

okay. first, i've got to apologize for two things--harping on sony's love of proprietary formats and my hitting you with something else from slashdot.

but with good reason. this article presents a balanced (and objective) view of sony's current (apparent) plan with regards to the ps3, their decision to include a blu-ray drive in the console, and their love of proprietary technologies (and the history that illustrates it).

so, that's it. just saw a good one and thought i'd point it out. i'm finished now.

--cid

net neutrality

2006-06-03T12:10:00.000-07:00

here's one that i'm having trouble digesting. net neutrality.

both sides have some really good arguments.

on the one hand, i agree with sonia arrison in her articles on the matter of regulations usually being a bad thing. i understand that the internet (and all of the concepts, ideas and paradigms that have sprung from it) happened largely because of the hard-to-control nature of the decentralized network. it's headless, so it's very resiliant, and simultaneously, anyone can introduce and idea from any point and have it spread to any (or even every) other point on the network without much time, effort, or way to stop it.

basically, it's a more level playing field.

and i also understand that there are ways to alter that level playing field to once again stack the proverbial deck in a particular entity or interested party's favour.

but i can also see that large entities controlling a large portion of the infrastructure can institute certain practices (for whatever reasons) that can have effects on performance and usability.

and what i mean by that is that an entity which controls a large enough portion of the backbone, can effectively disrupt, cripple or break sites and services which run over their channels.

now the real question becomes one of the lesser of two (actually three) evils--allow these companies to do as they will (i.e. throw network neutrality right out the window and forget about it), allow the government to regulate the backbone providers (and i think we all know about some of the perils that one contains), or to come to some other solution...maybe the honour system? some kind of independent (and unbiased) third party audit scheme? *shrugs*

i understand how _i_ feel about the matter--i just don't know which of the two apparent factions i fit into.

actually, i guess i don't necessarily have to pick one of the existing sides. i've never been very good at fitting in anyway...

besides, pretty soon we'll get to see what all the politicians think. hehe.

as always, i'm still learning.

--cid

a paper by tim wu--the guy who coined the term 'network neutrality'

PERFORM act

2006-06-03T11:22:00.000-07:00

platform equality and remedies for rights holders in music. that's the latest clever acronym to disguise a piece of legislation being put in place by a very specific (and coincidentally filthy rich) corner of an industry we all know and love...

what's this one all about, you ask?

perform, at first glance, seems to be there for two reasons--firstly, the riaa wants more money from satellite radio providers, and secondly, because it's an opportunity to set more precedents and get a little more case law going their way.

specifically, riaa is pissed about the hybrid satellite radio/mp3 player combos coming down the pipe. the reason they're mad is because these devices allow you to timeshift and/or your paid for subscription content so it can be listened to at a different time or setting. well, both of these practices (timeshifting and placeshifting) fall under the concept of 'fair use' and if you've followed the anything about the riaa, you prolly know how they feel about fair use...

anyway, it seems that they're still unhappy with current laws covering fair use (not to mention relatively recent laws--such as the dmca--which attack the legal basis of such concepts as fair use) and are still persuing methods of weakening consumers' rights, ensuring their ability to squeeze unfair percentages out of both the artists whose work they're getting rich off and their own customers who are making it possible, and to strengthen their own abilities to control (through legal means and business tactics) market variables, release (and the disabling of functions) of new technologies.

announcements like this make me want to redouble my efforts in opening people's eyes (my own as well as others) and to go out and find (or make!) more alternative media choices.

you don't like what's on tv? get a camcorder and go make your own video. don't like the crap clearchannel puts on most of the radio stations in america? go find an internet radio show you do like. go _make_ your _own_ internet radio show. go volunteer at your local public station. get a short wave and listen to international broadcasts. go to the library and read a book. _write_ a book. draw a picture. go for a walk. reassess the media you consume on a daily basis and think about why you're into what you are.

think about how it used to be. think about how it is. think about how it might be soon. think about how that makes you feel.

don't forget that we _do_ still have power. we do still have functioning brains and independent wills. we can do things on our own. we can bond together and accomplish things. amazing things.

new products and ideas don't have to come from some corporation.

we are the people and knowing that makes me feel vibrant and alive.

--cid

0wn your media consumption habits

if you want to read more about the perform act (and other laws pertaining to the rights of citizens) please check out the following...

if you know me, you know i'm always pimpin' the eff. and there's the hrrc and and article about the situation (and another). oh, and an arstechnica article, too. and, the actual text.

keep your eyes 0pen....

google been reading neuromancer?

2006-05-30T13:02:00.000-07:00

google (an entity which i like to talk about) has announced plans for how it wants to end up. and it sounds strangely like the end of neuromancer.

apparently, they are envisioning a sort of artificial intelligence to interpret, understand, and respond to queries. hmm.

there are about a million different directions this topic could bleed into, but right now, i simply don't have the time. i will continue this later.

--cid

0wn yourself

what happened to my heroes?

2006-05-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

i knew better. i really did. i mean, i've _seen_ the first two, haven't i? i knew.

but i went anyway.

x-men 3:the last stand. sigh.... i can't claim to be the nerdiest of x-men nerds. after all, they're older than me. but i do have my fair share (and probably a few other shares) of useless marvel trivia stored up here and that story just didn't sit very well with me.

maybe i'm wrong. maybe there's some part of the story that i was never exposed to. maybe there are more important things i should be worrying about, but i'm offended. my childhood legends (and many others' before me) seem to have be exploited by hollywood.

i've gotta stop right now....

--cid

lemme know how you feel, ok?

the local 'zine scene

2006-05-25T12:32:00.000-07:00

shouts to one of my new favourite projects--the denver zine library.

this is one of the coolest projects i've seen in awhile. a simple idea, but a great one. at present, they've got over six and a half thousand zines from all over the place, on just about any topic you can think of.

the zines are all donated, and the library itself is run by volunteers, but from what i can tell, it's growing by leaps and bounds. so, shouts guys--keep up the good work.

and if you have a zine you want to get out there, give 'em a copy. let ppl hear your voice.

if you live in the area, you might think about volunteering, and if you don't, maybe you could start your own local library of independent media.

it's a good thing.

later.

--cid

0wn yourself

welcome back stank

2006-05-24T10:31:00.000-07:00

stankDawg is baaack...

and i'd just like to say it's good to have you back. and i also wanna say thanks to blackRatchet and strom carlson for keeping binrev radio going this whole time.

they've got a good community at binary revolution. if you've never been there, you should check it out.

and (on a side note) there's now a ddp blawg.

anyway, that's it--shouts where they belong (you know who you are)...

--cid

sony + playstation3 + greedy = sad cid

2006-05-24T10:14:00.000-07:00

sony, sony, sony...

you've done it again--i'm simultaneously amazed by your technical prowess and your overwhelming lack of touch with your customer base.

there was a time, when the only thing that worried me about the ps3 was the funny looking boomerang controller.

the cell processor has shown itself to be more than sufficient for truly crunching some numbers. integrated wireless. the blu-ray next gen storage promised plenty of storage, plus the nifty (supposedly screwdriver-tested scratch-proof) coating that tdk makes for them.

it all looked so good.

and then the prices were announced. i don't know who sony thinks they are, but i think that's outrageous. i would be willing to put up with all their silly drm-loving proprietary (you've-gotta-buy-it-from-us) attitude only so far. and five or six hundo is a bit too far, methinks.

is it gonna be cool? prolly.

am i gonna find out? prolly.

am i gonna drop half a grand to hop on the next gen wave? ahh...no.

playstation and me are gonna be buddies no more.

i've got no doubt that the hardware's gonna be impressive, and the games will almost certainly be sweet, but there's no way i'm doing the retail thing at that price. used--a price drop--whatever, but i think sony's been a little more pretentious than usual with this one.

i guess we'll see.

--cid

p.s. pardon the rant, but it's been building awhile and it hadda come out somewhere.

subpeona - not a word you wanna hear in the same sentence as google

2006-01-21T16:56:00.000-07:00

the subpeona's have started. google, among others, have had their records subpeonaed (however you spell that) by 'federal investigators'--whatever that means.

these mysterious investigators have claimed the info they're after isn't anything personal, but this just underscores the potential for abuse of subpeonas (or illegitimate access to the massive databases that google and other massive info warehouses maintain).

if we let this happen, we'll be opening the door for more invasive uses of technology that we might end up regretting....

i've gotta give 'em shouts for refusing to comply with the order (which is cool) but it's like the eff said--if search companies (and other dataminers) keep keeping all this info, the government (and criminals) are gonna keep trying to get at it.

if you don't understand why this is a problem, go read nineteen eighty-four again.

interesting times we're living in...

--cid

0wn yourself

really?

2006-01-02T10:43:00.001-07:00

maybe this kind of thing will finally put it into perspective to people.

both sides have completely valid points--yes, piracy is basically stealing. on the other hand, we, as consumers know that it _does not_ cost seventeen dollars to press that record.

the industry is in the unenviable (and unnecessary) position of being a middle man. the artists don't really need a label to press an album anymore (even to get play), but they've made so much money for so long, that they don't wanna just give up and go away.

what's it gonna be?

--cid

0wned yourself, lately?

isracast - do it yourself hydrogen?

2005-10-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

the new technology from isracast is promising to make hydrogen cars easier. and affordable.

i hope so.

--cid

the six dumbest security practices

2005-10-25T00:18:00.000-07:00

i don't necessarily agree with all the viewpoints, but this brings up some interesting points.

--cid

0wn your security practices b4 they pwn u

hbo poisoning bittorrent

2005-10-25T00:16:00.000-07:00

according to this article on techreport.com, hbo is poisoning bittorrent by running bogus peers which claim to have a file, but actually send out bunk data chunks (which slows the progress of the download).

pretty smart. dirty, but smart.

--cid

the life artificial

2005-10-25T00:15:00.000-07:00

this pdf tells about the plan for artificially spawning new life. interesting.

--cid

0wn your nucleic acids

msh (microsoft command shell)

2005-10-25T00:14:00.000-07:00

arstechnica has an article about the new microsoft command shell (msh) and i've gotta say i'm impressed. it looks like somebody over at redmond actually thought about it.

--cid

guimp: world's smallest website

2005-10-04T13:45:00.000-07:00

found it on geekblue dot net. ::guimp:: world's smallest website.

--cid

ethanol

2005-10-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

well, if we can't get off internal combustion, maybe we could at least get on the ethanol train.

--cid

mastercard announces no-touch rfid credit cards

2005-10-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

mastercard has announced plans to deploy no-touch radio frequency credit cards.

they better do a good job.

--cid

who's 0wned _your_ wallet?

sun's open source drm project

2005-10-01T15:30:00.000-07:00

yup. you read it correctly. it said sun microsystems is working on an open source digital rights management. i know this is kinda old, but it deserves a link, at the very least.

lemme know what _you_ think...

--cid

faster than the speed of light?

2005-10-01T15:28:00.000-07:00

a team of european researchers claims to have influenced the speed of light--specifically slowed light traveling down a fiber, and also sped it up (apparently faster than light's s'posed to go).

this could be cool.

i wanna see optical computing--optical wavelength processors rather than semiconductors, fiber optics everywhere, stunning optically piped displays. oooooooohh...

--cid

0wn yourself

i wanna get some blades

2005-10-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

i want blades. like the ones by cubix or ibm or sun.

blade servers powering a blade pc setup threaded throughout my house. a massive raid array.

anyway, i want some kind of cluster. it just seems like the way to go. if it works so wonderfully well for things like video rendering, why can't we use it for normal stuff like running os'es simultaneously, or making better versions of games?

forget dual core. i want a dodecahedral core.

--cid

titan - an intriguing possibility

2005-10-01T07:42:00.000-07:00

this article at space dot com talks about the changing section of opinion regarding the location and possibility for extra terrestrial life.

see, titan's pretty cold, chillin' out there with saturn, but if you think about extremophiles (or creatures which live in extremely inhospitable environments--i.e. boiling or freezing temperatures, or environments with extreme ph or salinity).

in particular, a particular kind of extremophile, a psychrophile (here's the wiki) could thrive in the frozen temperatures of titan.

now, don't get me wrong, here. i don't necessarily think this is like some major breakthrough or anything. so far it's all speculation, but it would be pretty cool if we found some crazy bacteria living on another planet (in our own back even).

the reason i'm glad--the reason i'm posting this, is because at least people are starting to think about things like this again. at least it's a topic. science took a backseat for awhile, and i think that's starting to change. at least i hope.

--cid

the tsa claims they can't access their own database

2005-10-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

maybe they need some help...

effector newsletter talks about the tsa and their scramble to deal with this latest database they've collected.

after hundreds of requests for information they (sort of) started to comply, though now they say they lack the ability to search the database by keyword, and apparently they've already deleted a big chunk.

interesting...

--cid

olsen finally made it

2005-10-01T07:12:00.000-07:00

gotta give shouts to this guy--greg olsen--the first space tourist. that's hot.

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

hackermedia.org - just givin' a shout

2005-09-27T07:35:00.000-07:00

shout outs to hackermedia.org! (bang)

--cid

chinese space program moving right along

2005-09-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

i think this article about the chinese space program should really drive home the point of how the rest of the world is both interested and very well educated in the sciences.

we need to wake up.

--cidViscous

0wn your country

new sparcs lighting big fires?

2005-09-27T07:25:00.000-07:00

sun microsystems new sunfire servers with the new ultrasparc iv+ chips.

hafta wait and see how they do.

--cid

secure google wi-fi

2005-09-26T19:52:00.000-07:00

this is new--secure wi-fi vpn through google.

i wonder what all they'll be logging?

--cid Viscous

0wn yourself

cool concept car con

2005-09-26T19:02:00.000-07:00

badass concept car snippets from extremetech dot com.

most of it's not really that great, but there are a few gems.

--cid

hp with the hardware

2005-09-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

new drm from hp (licensed from intel) and developed with phillips?

that's a mouthful.

i guess it's no surprise. hardware drm seems to be harder than software management techniques (no pun intended). it's not the first step down a long, dangerous path of crippled and outlawed technologies designed more with a thought to how they're gonna protect the corporations' intellectual properties than to how it's gonna benefit the end users.

we need to pay attention.

--cid

headline reads 'rocker bashes digital rights management'

2005-09-26T18:00:00.000-07:00

now, this is the kind of attitude you've gotta give shouts to--rocker bashes digital rights management.

from what i've heard, they didn't have any control over stopping the inclusion of digital rights management (drm) on their latest cd, so they apologized to their fans and apparently put up instructions for bypassing the restrictions (which stopped users from importing the songs to their portable players).

now that's cool. shouts, guys.

--cid

0wn yourself

snoop onto them as they snoop onto us

2005-09-22T20:22:00.000-07:00

analyzing the sounds of keystrokes to tell what's being typed (with something like 96% accuracy).

creepy, though interesting.

for some reason it reminds me of an idea i once read about for a biometric security feature that would continuously run a hash of certain of the users physical input parameters--i.e. the rhythm of your typing or the way you move your mouse around.

better than a password because it's harder to steal--you have to fake it--and also because it keeps working the whole session, in the background, so, if an intruder did somehow manage to breach security, if the computer realizes that the biometric usage patterns don't match, then the session can be interrupted--something that can't really happen with a password.

--cid

interesting....

2005-09-20T05:05:00.000-07:00

a security forum called first, cisco, and ebay, among others, are urging everybody to adopt a 'commov vulnerability scoring system' (cvss) for the purpose of simplifying and unifying network protection and anti-malware efforts.

if practiced, having a simple, accurately descriptive way of classifying and explaining new exploits could be very useful to many parties (most of who would be the actual parties you'd _want_ to be involved in the process).

now, we'll just have to wait and see if ppl dig it (will use it properly) and if they do it right.

--cid Viscous

0wn yourself

north korea's playing ball?

2005-09-20T04:44:00.000-07:00

north korea says they'll begin dismantling nukes provided (among other things) that the us supply a light water reactor to give power to the people (electricly speaking).

*shrugs*

i s'pose i'd sooner like to have us building their reactors than them actually having a nuclear program of their own. i didn't know if they were gonna play ball or not.

--cid

vista for free?

2005-09-19T09:12:00.000-07:00

vista for free? open source windows?

i don't know about that....

--cid

twenty eighteen (2018) ? seriously?

2005-09-19T08:56:00.000-07:00

astronauts back on the moon in twenty eighteen? are you kidding, nasa? just telling us something outrageously far away so if you do it faster you'll look like heroes?

what's wrong with like--i dunno--two thousand six or something? have we forgotton something since we did it the last time? misplace the blueprints? we (meaning the citizens of the united states of america) need to start thinking bigger and making better use of our strengths.

sometimes i think americans have forgotten what it means to be american.

while i'm glad the space program has at least been giving the appearance of moving again, i think we can do better than two thousand and eighteen, neh?

the current shuttle orbiter design is ancient and unreliable. we neet to create a new design for a (truly) reusable spacecraft, but until that time arrives, it does not mean that we shouldn't be twiddling our thumbs.

there is a lot to learn, still.

we need to send up more automated tests and experiments and probes to increase our knowledge, and we should also be experimenting with extended stays out of earth's gravity and protective magnetic field. (this pdf should give you the idea...)

we should (and can) put people on the moon very much sooner than 2020 or 2018 or any other such number. by then we should have a permanent colony (or reseach labs or something) on the moon. our natural satellite can serve as a playground for learning how to best build habitable environments outside of earth.

we've had our terrestrial biodomes and the international space station as stomping grounds already. now we need to branch out to the moon (and mars once we solve certain problems associated with extended space flight--the effect of microgravity on the human body (possibilities include so called 'rotational gravity' which is centrifugal force) and the secondary radiation caused by particles being emitted from radiation shielding when it's bombarded (which could be dealt with through new plastics being developed, layers of shielding on a different scale than previously planned, or possibly even through magnetic field manipulation).

interesting times we're living in, but i hope we can start making some real progress soon.

--cid

0wn yourself

twenty things we now know four years after 9/11

2005-09-16T20:37:00.000-07:00

twenty things we now know...

interesting.

--cid

voice analysis determines concentration

2005-09-16T19:08:00.000-07:00

the so-called jerk-o-meter is ready to analyze your voice patterns to tell how much attention your paying (which it can then relay to whomever you're talking to). though, i can think of some other interesting uses this technology could be put to.

can you?

--cid Viscous

0wn yourself

spam map

2005-09-15T16:53:00.000-07:00

the mailinator has a new trick--spam maps. it uses google maps and their own database to plot out the location of wicked spam clogs. kinda cool.

--cid

new airgo wifi chip

2005-09-15T11:05:00.000-07:00

airgo has a new chip for wireless.

the new mimo chip (Gen3 or something like that) is s'posed to support up to 240 Mbps and apparently they're claiming that in real-world tests they're getting actual, sustained throughput of over 120 megs of uncompressed traffic--which is slightly faster than ethernet standard 100BaseT.

so let's see it. put it in the stores, put a good price on it, and we'll buy it already....

--cid Viscous

daypop

2005-09-15T10:59:00.000-07:00

daypop - a current events/weblog/news search engine

hmmm..... i wonder how they keep things current? clusty, the clustering engine is an interesting one, too. and i just found bloogz, too.

it's interesting to watch this whole process evolve and build on itself.

--cid

zen garden css project

2005-09-15T10:36:00.000-07:00

css zen garden: the beauty in css design, is a project which showcases the creative css tricks that can be accomplished through style sheets.

the homepage is an html framework and a css sheet. artists are encouraged to download the style sheet and modify it to suit their tastes--but they can't change the html for the index.

if the zen garden accepts your sheet, it will be added to the list. as you click on the name of each style sheet, it's loaded into the index page giving it drastically different looks and feels, but all with the same html framework.

shouts to the css zen garden project.

--cid

0wn yourself

joone

2005-09-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

joone - java object oriented neural engine

it's an open framework for setting up artificial neural networks.

swett.

--cid

lojack for your laptop

2005-09-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

new laptop sports built-in tracer. they don't say how the technology works, but apparently, if it's not found within sixty days, you get a refund of up to $1000--which is just super on a laptop which costs twelve or thirteen hundred dollars containing who knows how much (possibly sensetive or irreplaceable) data.

gateway is doing it, along with another embedded security device--a tpm (technical protection measures) chip. i don't think i like it.

this chip could be used to enforce drm at the hardware level, it contains a uniquely identifying number which is never a good thing, and, on the whole, seems to be set up to protect a corporation from losing important data on a stolen laptop, and retrieve their computer than actually protecting an end user from data loss or even really (in some cases) get enough money to even cover teh hardware.

i'm not impressed.

--cid

pulling a fema?

2005-09-09T19:10:00.000-07:00

people are saying fema lacks disaster experience. off the hook's emmanuel goldstein wants everyone to start using it as an insult.

you fema'ed us this time, didn't you? go fema yourself. you are _such_ a fema. he's gone and pulled a fema?

i'm all for it.

--cid

0wn yourself

aggregated carbon nanorods

2005-09-09T02:12:00.000-07:00

aggregated carbon nano rods. s'posed to be harder than diamond.

sweet!

--cid

0wn yourself

twenty things we now know four years after 9/11

2005-09-09T02:01:00.000-07:00

twenty things we now know four years after nine over eleven. it's on liberal slant.com, so i think you'll see where it's coming from.

wild.

--cid

study shows airlines now safer for terrorists

2005-09-09T01:45:00.000-07:00

this excellent article on sierratimes dot com brings up some very good points (after starting with a chilling story of the airline security confiscating the dull pocket knife the author had inadvertantly left in his bag while missing the four (count 'em) four smal combat knives he had in the same carryon bag.

and what's worse is he (or possibly she, actually, i didn't look at who wrote it...) made it through multiple airport screenings, at different airports, going both directions, and all they found is the pocket knife.

unbelievable.

or, actually, i s'pose that's all-to-believable these days anyway. oops. there i go again.

i did agree with the logic of the article tho, and the conclusion reached--namely that it's impossible to disarm all of the criminals all of the time, and it's impossible to pick them out all of the time. apparently, it's also very improbable that they could put armed personnel on every flight, and if they did that it could (and prolly would) create an entirely new set of problems (i.e. crazy terrorist flight attendents with guns).

also the solution proposed in the article makes a lot of sense if two conditions are met--a) permit holders are allowed to bring their concealed weapons on all the flights and b) proper gun control and licensing were maintained and (i know, i said two) c) carriers not be identified (singled out) as concealed weapon carriers.

random searches just aren't effective (by any means) and they are also not what this country is supposed to stand for.

--cid

0wn yourself

http://www.sierratimes.com/archive/files/sep/27/armp092701.htm
http://slate.msn.com/id/2064257/

whatever happened to 'that's my bush'?

2005-09-09T01:14:00.000-07:00

bush dividing the country? bush popularity at an all time low?

i even heard that his popularity ratings are equal to those of nixon just before the impeachment. but then nixon didn't have partisan control of every branch, did he? i dunno what's going on here, but it doesn't seem like very many people like the president right now.

you know what i miss, tho..? 'that's my bush'--was it comedy central? yeah, it was trey parker and matt stone, the dudes from south park and orgazmo. i wish that show would've lasted through the presidency.

*sigh*

i'm surprised by the way the country is reacting to this whole disaster thing, though sadly, i'm not all that surprised at how badly the situation turned out.

looting and rioting? snipers? the whole city wiped out? minimal communications. trouble getting in and out. the tsa bumbling around hand searching evacuees (or so the story goes...) from the 'cane.

we (as a country) need to start working as a whole to better ourselves and our land. we need to fortify our defenses and expand our education exponentially. we need to get resources to the people. we need to rethink a few laws, rethink some policies and break down a few barriers.

we need to forget about politics for awhile and work on survival and self preservation and expansion (not necessarily of our borders (at least not on this world) but our abilities and talents and resources, we need to expand). it's time for another renaissance.

i sure do miss that show...

--cidViscous

0wn yourself

inflatable spacecraft by bigelow

2005-09-09T00:13:00.000-07:00

space dot com's talking about the new inflatable spacecraft design by bigelow aerospace. bigelow's been working with nasa--i guess they're working on some kind of space hotel.

space tourism is gonna be a reality soon, methinks.

it's this kind of attitude (not necessarily the capitalistic 'siezing newly blossoming opportunities in newly forming markets' kind of attitude, but capitalism )_does_ yield results.

space kinda got put on the back burner for a decade or so as the world realized what cyberspace was (and as cyberspace came into existence as we know it today). now, i think the ball's finally starting to roll again.

private companies like bigelow and lockheed martin and many others have broken a lot of ground (indeed, creating the commercial space industry) in areas that were formerly only the domain of governments.

does that say something about technology, the state of nasa, or the state of corporate economics? private rewards and challenges (most prominent example: the ansari x prize) have contributed to this phenomenon, as well.

me? i'm just glad we've still got our eyes on the stars (and lately mars, if you'll pardon my unavoidable rhyme).

--cid