The Five Dollar Word

TrueCrypt for Mac OS X

2009-03-27T16:51:00.003-11:00

I made an interesting discovery today regarding the cross-platform use of the TrueCrypt software package. I created an encrypted partition on a thumb drive on a Windows box. This partition used the NTFS file system. But when I mounted this partition in Mac OS X as a non-root user I didn't have write privileges. However, if I created a partition under Windows using the FAT32 file system then I would have write permissions under Mac OS X. My guess is that because FAT32 lacks the extended file attributes needed for per-user permissions.

Eigenbreeding

2009-02-26T14:55:00.001-11:00

I've come up with a new, math-based system for breeding the world's cutest cats.

Begin with a breeding set of cats. Rank each cat's cuteness based on a fixed set of criteria. This data is formatted into a matrix. The set of matrices is then calculated for their Eigenvalue.

Now select cats whose cuteness measurements most closely match the Eigencuteness values. From their kittens calculate new Eigencuteness values, a new Eigenvalue overall, and repeat. Eventually you'll have a cat that approaches optimal cuteness!

This approach also accommodates for changes in taste because the Eigenvalue can shift over time.

Find Your MAC Address: Nintendo DS

2009-01-11T11:53:00.003-11:00

I was going to do another one of these mini-tutorials on how to find your MAC address for the Nintendo DS. Turns out there's no way to do this with the firmware that ships on the DS. Only certain games that allow you to play across the Internet will give you the MAC address. If time permits I'll try to find a list of those games and post it here.

Replacing Your Verizon Router

2009-01-11T11:46:00.004-11:00

I recently made the switch from Comcast cable to Verizon's FiOS service for my home Internet needs. For Comcast my Linksys BEFCMU10 cable modem worked fine for seven years. I don't think you can even buy one of those new anymore. However, Verizon foisted a different wireless router off onto me, the ActionTec MI424WR.

A generic home network router will have five Ethernet ports on it. One port will be for the WAN while the other four are for the LAN. In this case we'll have two such routers. We want our router to be the main one with the ActionTec behind it. Because routers are layer 3 devices we'll need to set up two different IP networks. These network addresses can be anything not publicly routable. For this example our two networks are 192.168.0.0/24 and 192.168.1.0/24.

We'll call our two routers A and B. Router A will be the one that connects to the ISP. The WAN address on A is determined by the ISP (usually via DHCP) so we can ignore that. The LAN addresses on A will be given the 192.168.0.0/24 range. Router B's WAN port will connect to one of the LAN ports on A so it will have to be something like 192.168.0.3. The LAN ports on B belong to the second network so their range is 192.168.1.0/24.

In this example our settop box only talks to router B. So the box will likely have an address like 192.168.1.73. This way you can use your own, better router while keeping basic TV functionality with Verizon FiOS.

New Year: New Game

2009-01-04T08:29:00.002-11:00

I've been playing a game I made up. You know how every store with a credit card payment option now has those electronic pen signy things? You know how your signature never looks like your signature? Well, my game is that every time I have to sign own of those I sign it in a completely different way. Sometimes I hold the pen likes its a giant novelty Crayon. Other times I use it to paint my signature on like a great artist. This is all because its totally irrelevant. No one looks at the signatures and they aren't digitally checked. So what's the point? Have fun!

Finding Your MAC Address: Nintendo Wii

2008-12-27T09:13:00.003-11:00

First, start off in the Wii's Main Menu where all the various channels are displayed. In the lower left-hand corner is a round button labeled Wii. When you hover over it the tooltip is "Wii Options". Start by clicking that button.

Now you have two big options to choose from. Select the one on the right, Wii Settings.

In this next menu you'll start out with a tab at the top labeled Wii System Settings 1. There's also a series of three rounded rectangles numbered 1 through 3 at the bottom right-hand corner. You'll need to press a right-pointing arrow button that's on the right-hand center side of the screen. Now you're in the aptly named Wii System Settings 2 tab. Choose the Internet option.

At this point you only have three choices. Pick the middle one, Console Information. And there is you MAC Address. Its just a series of twelve hexidecimal characters where pairs of characters are seperated by dashes (unlike the colon seperators for the iPod Touch). You can safely ignore the LAN Adapter MAC Address so long as you're only interested in the Wi-Fi networking for the Wii. The first half of your MAC address should be "00-21-47".

Finding Your MAC Address: Apple iPod Touch

2008-12-27T07:32:00.002-11:00

If your wireless network hub is set up with a MAC address filter/white list then you'll need to collect all the MAC addresses from your new toys in order to get them connected.

First up in this series on finding MAC addresses is the Apple iPod Touch because its near and dear to my heart.

From the Main Menu of the iPod you want to choose the Settings option. By default this will be in the bottom right-hand corner. The icon is a series of metal gears.

Choose the General option, which is the third from the top and at the top of a contiguous list of options.

Now, choose the About option. Scroll to the very bottom. The second to last item in the list is Wi-Fi Address, which is just the MAC address for the 802.11 network device. The value itself is a string of twelve hexidecimal characters with colons between each pair of characters. It looks something like: xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx where "xx" are two hexidecimal characters. The first half of the string should actually be "00:22:41" because all Apple devices should start with the same substring!

Holiday Techno Toys

2008-12-27T07:31:00.001-11:00

I'm sure a lot of people got some cool gear for the holidays. My personal experience over the past couple days has consisted of updating network configurations to allow these boxes out onto the Net. So I thought I'd publish a quick series of articles giving little pointers on how to speed things along. Enjoy!

Business Plan

2008-12-18T11:16:00.004-11:00

I'm waiting at home for an installation and the questions occurs to me: how do service industries get away with only doing installations during normal business hours? Normal business hours are when everybody is doing business! If you're a service company that requires installations then you need to offer that service when its convenient to your customers. How hard would it be to require you installers to work second shift instead of first?

The Future of Libraries

2008-12-13T10:38:00.004-11:00

I've become a big fan of my local public library despite its lack of selection. But whenever I walk in there I see all the dozen or so computers occupied and few people browsing the books. This brings up a conversation that I don't claim to be the originator of: What will the mission of libraries be in a world of changing media?

Libraries are no stranger to changing media. The only constant has been the printed book. But even that is starting to slip. The last twenty years has introduced changes in media that can only be described as revolutionary. Who now can remember micrographs?

Its not the mission of a library to keep printed books in vogue. Certainly they're aesthetically pleasing. But a library is there to disseminate knowledge. But they also can't be glorified, free Internet cafes. So the challenge of the modern library is how to balance these various factors while remaining flexible and open to new developments.

Calling All Nerds

2008-12-01T11:21:00.003-11:00

I've picked up a recent fascination with name spaces, specifically constrained name spaces like country codes, language codes, XML and other programming languages. But I always wondered why all four-letter TV and radio station identifiers started with either a "W" or a "K" like WKRP or KQED. Turns out that broadcast stations could begin with any letter of the alphabet but certain ranges were allocated to certain countries. For instance, the U.S. gets all sequences starting with "W" but only a subset of all sequences beginning with "K".

Trailerpark Training

2008-11-27T12:11:00.002-11:00

Last night at a BW3's I saw a couple of kids playing one of this touch screen video consoles at their table. This wouldn't be remarkable but the game they were playing was beer pong against cartoon pirates. I mean, really? Is this something that 7 year-olds need to be practicing?

До свидания, Америка

2008-11-25T17:20:00.003-11:00

Apparently a learned Russian scholar was quoted as saying that the current financial turmoil will cause the United States to split into several pieces. I can't say I'm terribly worried. This is after all coming from someone who has a degree in political science in a country that can't let its people actually vote. Russia seems to excel in the area of the Potemkin vote.

Art Deco-Inspired

2008-11-15T14:15:00.006-11:00

Recently I've develop a strong interest in art deco architecture and style. Specifically I dig the streamline moderne style. One weekend I spent in New York I hoofed dozens of blocks to see some of the classic architecture.

Road to Perdition - Depression-era gangster flick set in the Midwest around the Chicago area.
Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow - An alternate history direct from a pulp magazine full of 1940s style.
The Thirteenth Floor - Half the movie is set in "modern" times and half of it in a simulation of 1930s Los Angeles.
Indiana Jones - Set in the 30s and 40s it features a lot of iconic objects like the Boeing 314 Clipper.
Gattaca - Actually set in the future but with a retro styling completely reminiscent of art deco.
Bioshock - Not really a movie but this video game is almost one in its own right. Set in a 1960s submarine city that was straight out of the 1940s.
Crimson Skies - Also not a movie, but this game exists in a dystopian alternate history where rigid airships ply the skies with other 1940s aircraft.

A Born Leader

2008-11-14T17:50:00.002-11:00

I've never understood the saying, "To lead a good life." As if somehow life is something that can be lead around by the nose. It seems to me that life is something that is inflicted upon us.

I'm going for "deep" here and not "emo".

Ballot Time

2008-10-17T10:05:00.002-11:00

It's almost election time in the United States! But even some people in the USA don't realize that you're voting on more than just a couple of offices. Usually you have several ballot items concerning state, county, or local referendums. Some states just put on the ballot helpful bits like: "Do you vote for or against proposition 427?" What does that mean?! Well now you can find out using Ballotopedia! Its a great site and now I know all about the ballot items I'll be seeing. Granted, I'm still going to vote no on all of them, but at least I know!

ACORN Voter Fraud

2008-10-17T06:50:00.004-11:00

Recently there were revelations of voter registration fraud by a group called Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). The irony is that just in the last year I got a home mortgage for low-income families through an ACORN program.

While sitting in one of the ACORN office, waiting to do our financial review, I noticed a lot of different things posted on the walls. One was a piece of paper identifying the daily voter registration quotas. Now, I didn't see anything that said to fake registrations if you can't get them otherwise, but it does occur to me that setting hard quotas for something like voter registration does put a lot of pressure on the actual workers who are pounding the streets. This doesn't spell out impropriety, but it does concern me.

More Mail Scams

2008-09-26T12:45:00.003-11:00

I got a nice postcard in the mail today. It came from:

Dealership Warranties
12131 Dorsett Rd., #106
Maryland Heights, MO 63043

It had "VEHICLE SERVICE NOTIFICATION" splashed across the top in bold, capitalized text. Below it informed me:

This notification is to inform you that your factory warranty has expired or is about to expire. To avoid the high cost of automobile repairs, call us immediately with your Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) and exact miles to renew.

Now this isn't exactly a scam. But it is certainly deceptive. The last sentence suggests that I can "renew" my warranty. But they want my VIN and mileage. An actual warranty holder would already know the first part, and any service appointments with a dealership would record the second part.

The phone number included with this mail is: 1-866-533-9966. A Google search for this number shows quite a few more instances of this dubious sales practice.

Maryland Slots

2008-09-14T12:42:00.003-11:00

This coming November there will be a referendum on the ballot about whether or not to allow slots machines at horse racing tracks around the state of Maryland. I'll just state from the beginning that I'm opposed to the idea. It seems like there are a couple of arguments one might use against slots.

Social Cost Argument

There are all kinds of studies about what gambling does to a community. Gambling addiction overwhelmingly affects the lower income brackets. In other words, those who can least afford to gamble do it the most, and do it to excess. Apparently there are provisions in the Maryland proposal to use some of the income for increased policing around the slots areas. Its like they're admitting that it'll create problems.

I'm also annoyed by the "stupidity tax" argument for slots. If its true that those who can't afford to gamble do it more then that just increases the future costs for unemployment, food stamps, and any number of other social programs to support those people. So the tax is actually on those who advocate letting poor people gamble their money away. In a way I guess it is a "stupidity tax", but on who?

Money for Education

The way a lot of slots proponents advocate their goal is to sell it as income for education. Well, that's obviously ignoring the fact that a lot of companies are going to first turn a profit on the gambling before turning over some of the money to the state.

The fact of the matter is that if we really do need more money for education, which usually seems to be the case, then the cheaper and more equitable solution is to increase taxes. Taxes can be tailored to spread the financial cost across the economic spectrum. Creating companies that are creating profits for themselves first doesn't seem to be the most efficient solution.

Save the Horsies

Apparently the horse racing industry is falling on hard times. Allowing slot machines on the premises will increase the income to these establishments and allow racing to continue.

So, let me get this straight... There's a failing industry, and we're all supposed to chip in to help it survive? That smacks more of socialism than capitalism. Ayn Rand would give a big, "I told you so," to that.

Losing Money to Those "Other" States

There are slot machines in neighboring West Virginia and Delaware. Some people think that we're "losing" money to these states, and that somehow by having our own slot machines we'll be able to keep it local.

This goes back to the social cost argument. The richest people are playing slot machines, so really how much money are we losing out on? And the, "everyone else is doing it argument," is morally dubious at best, and flat out juvenile at worst.

Digg A Hole, Then Crap in It

2008-09-03T09:32:00.003-11:00

The meta-news site, Digg, garnered a lot of attention a while ago. It was hailed as the second coming of the Internet. The concept was that you, citizen journalist, can "Digg" up news stories and post them online to be democratically voted up or down. The steam turd of a buzzword for this is, "user-generated content". Well, having "yes" or "no" buttons on a web site hardly equates to democracy. I haven't visited Digg very often anymore. Maybe twice a year. But every time I'm astounded by the fact that the site is so blatantly slanted to the liberal bent. I'm talking like beyond Marx himself here! It's so bad that I find the site to be completely irrelevant anymore aside from being a soapbox for every blowhard and political pundit wannabe.

Mail Scam

2008-08-18T07:37:00.002-11:00

Yet another scam for you. This one through the good, old-fashioned post.

I got one of those mass mailer letters with the perforated edges. It said "Happy Birthday!" on the front. Inside there was a Southwest Airlines logo, which included the text, "Plus other major airlines".

Further down it said that I had won a free trip for my birthday! Hooray! All I had to do was call 1-800-813-6994. I even had a reservation code! PB007.

There was another piece of paper that I ripped out that looked like a Southwest Airlines boarding pass. On the back in small print was written:

Travel Provider:
Global Travel
8500 Leesburg Pike
Suite 306
Vienne, Va 22182

*Certain restrictions may apply.

*This promotion is not sponsored by or affiliated with Southwest, they are a major supplier

Now let's put on our thinking hats... What makes this appear as a scam?

Postage paid in West Palm Beach, Florida. Permit #: 3950.
Suspicious travel agency that I can't nail down on the web. They claim to be in "Vienne", Virginia. There is no "Vienne". But there is a "Vienna".
Possible use of Southwest registered trademarks without permission.
Again, poor grammar and punctuation.
The desire for me to contact them.

Aaaannndd... SCAM!

Text Message Scam

2008-08-16T07:21:00.003-11:00

Got this text message on August 14th:

Your Finance Center F-C-U services was suspended for suspicious activity, call us at 6197934988

The message was from "dept@fcfcu.com". When I first googled this I didn't get any results. But now, two days later, quite a few results are popping up. Here are some clues that this was a scam:

Poor grammar and punctuation.
Real banks don't text you if something's suspicious. A real human will call you.
619 is a San Diego area code phone number.
The Whois results returns an IP in Chicago, Illinois.

My recommendation: don't call that phone number!

Vegas

2008-08-13T15:56:00.001-11:00

VEGAS! WOOO!!!

That will be all.

Tech Help for iTunes

2008-08-13T15:54:00.001-11:00

I was recently experiencing a problem with iTunes for Windows where I would start ripping a CD and after two or three songs the CD would just disappear. Eventually it would reappear and the same thing would repeat over and over.

The solution was making sure that AutoRun for the CD drive was turned on. VMWare Server turned that off and apparently iTunes didn't like that so much...

Tony's Freakin Rich

2008-07-20T06:02:00.003-11:00

Does anyone know who this Tony guy is in New York? He has to be freakin rich! I see his name everywhere. Apparently he owns pizza shops, hotdog stands, tuxedo stores, real estate, just about everything! How does Donald Trump have his own TV show and this Tony doesn't? Seriously...

Sphincter Says What?

2008-07-20T03:24:00.003-11:00

Here's a quick, completely subjective survey of language frequency heard on top of the Empire State Building in order of descending frequency:

Then a bunch I didn't recognize. Surprisingly, little to no Cantonese, Hindi, Urdu, or Punjabi...

Dirty, Dirty Cities

2008-07-18T16:53:00.004-11:00

I've now been to NYC. I must say as fun as it is it is still a dirty, dirty city. Inspired, I will now present a list of dirty cities:

New York
New Orleans
Gary, including East Chicago, Whiting, Hammond, and 90% of Lake county
Binghamton, NY
Los Angeles
San Francisco

Feel free to post any comments concerning your own dirty cities.

Radio Shack

2008-07-17T05:34:00.001-11:00

I used to like Radio Shack. It was kind of a nerd haven. You could find all matter of useless stuff in there. Piezo buzzers? Check. Random resistors? Double check.

But I went into one last night and it was a shadow of its former self. The shelves were mostly cell phones, cell phone power chargers, cell phone headsets, and two Xbox 360s. Its like RS is trying to be like Best Buy. But BB can leverage its size to offer a wide variety of goods. RS could never compete especially since their stores are so small. What in the world is going on here?

Timecube

2008-07-05T16:21:00.005-11:00

There's a bizarre site on the web (as if there was any other type of site) called Time Cube.
The page is disjoint and difficult to read. Whoever authors it might very well have some kind of schizophrenic or schizotypal disorder. But he takes this all very seriously. I would know because I mocked his site in an email to him during my undergrad years and he responded about where I could stick my four-cornered head... His basic premise has something to do with time, but you'll have to get through the anti-semitism to find it.

On the page you'll also find a claim that he will debate his theory with anyone anytime. I did read a criticism that suggests Time Cube's arguments are semantically meaningless and not worth debating (read: they don't make sense). I think Time Cube is just plain wrong. The reason is because Time Cube still relies on the same meta-physics that it purports to deny. Therefore, in trying to deny the very meta-physics on which it relies, Time Cube is just another form of nihilism and not worth debating. There's your four-pointed word for you.

Battlestar Delaytica

2008-06-25T14:05:00.003-11:00

I went to watch Battlestar Galactica last Friday night and imagine my surprise to not find a new episode. Turns out that there won't be any new episodes until early 2009! It already took them about eight months to get season 4, the final season, up and running. And now they're throwing another six month delay? This is the kind of tomfoolery that made me lose interest in Lost's season 3.

Gardening Day

2008-06-07T10:35:00.005-11:00

Today was gardening day. Well, not really because I only had one task to do, and it was to smite this monstrosity:

I don't know what it is or where it came from but all those three feet of growth happened in the last three months. One glance there was nothing and another glance there was this! So I made the executive decision that it must die.

That was easier said than done. There were three stems and each was a quarter to one half inch in diameter. Turns out they were all part of a common root system. A little ways down I found where they all converged: on a bulb at least six inches across. That took some hacking and prying but it eventually succumbed to my manly prowess... And as a parting gift it left behind a few roots that were each at least a half inch in diameter. Now that's crazy.

As an aside, I thought I'd include this shot of our butterfly bush:

The red line is where I hacked it down to before spring began. We've had a lot of rain and you can see how its more than doubled in size. There's actually a light somewhere back in there. I swear you can't kill this thing.

Domain to Ya'll's

2008-06-04T15:52:00.003-11:00

I've been dabbling with the idea of setting up my own Windows domain at home. The benefits of a roaming profile are that you could have multiple users on the same machine (not simultaneously) with their own files, and that you can take your files to any machine that is a part of the domain.

Now, the downside to all of this is that the you need either Windows 2000 Server (Professional won't do) or Windows 2003 Server. Both of those are hundreds of dollars. That's hundreds of dollars more than I want to spend. So its Samba to the rescue! In case you don't know, Samba is an open source, reverse engineered implementation of the SMB protocol on which Microsoft built their domain system. Samba's free, and it lets you do fancy things like domain and roaming profiles. I've actually just gotten the domain part working after several tries. It sure ain't simple. Next I'll implement the roaming profiles. Maybe I'll even have time to post a tutorial. But for now: it works!

Westinghouse DPH-0802 Digital Picture Frame

2008-05-26T05:16:00.003-11:00

I want to warn everyone away from Westinghouse products.

Last August I got a DPF-0802 digital picture frame and I never got it working properly. A few minutes after I would start it up, lines and other artifacts would start appearing on the screen. After a while it would be fractal nonsense. An email complaint to Westinghouse earned me the response that you can't upload JPEGs with meta data in them. Keep in mind, any digital camera you use to take a picture inserts meta data into the JPEG file. So you have to open each and every picture in Microsoft Paint and re-save it strip out the meta data. A real pain in the ass.

Well I tried this and it didn't help anything. I got lazy and let time pass. Eventually I complained again. Apparently you can't also save the pictures in the root directory of the frame itself. That makes no sense. After all, when you plug it into your computer via USB cable you're automatically at the root directory.

So obvious Westinghouse can't write software worth crap. Their JPEG library is atrocious and they can't handle files not being in a certain directory. Someone screwed up somewhere along the way.

Fast forward another few months and the frame won't power up at all. The thing is a brick. I finally call up Westinghouse and want to get it fixed or replaced. Woops. My six month warranty expired so they won't do jack for me. Six months? What is this Chinese crap? The kicker is that I could send it to an authorized repair outlet... but there are none in my entire state! Great job, Westinghouse! You truly excel in the field of customer support!

Kung Fu Family Structure

2008-05-09T15:14:00.002-11:00

I took some time to piece together the structure of the kung fu family. The text is a non-standard transliteration from Cantonese.

Kung Fu Family Structure by Courtney Falk is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.

Scrubbing It

2008-05-08T16:07:00.001-11:00

So I've coined a new phrase tonight. It's called, "Scrubbing It". Basically, you're a TV show with a modestly long run, but your series is up. What you do is you pick your worst episode ever and end everything on it. That, my friends, is Scrubbing It.

Cat Time

2008-05-05T14:52:00.001-11:00

Cats are like children. No one has the cutest one, but you have to think that you do.

Hey Nerds, I Hate H.P. Lovecraft

2008-04-14T08:30:00.004-11:00

You heard me right: I hate H.P. Lovecraft. His writing is terrible, which is perhaps why he wasn't appreciated during his lifetime. It's as if Nathaniel Hawthorne rewrote the Greek classics. The stories are so drawn out and tedious. He pays minute attention to details like architecture, culture, and language while at the same time ignoring plot pacing and development. The man uses the "deus ex" construct like it's going out of style! Oh, and don't get me started on his vocabulary. Here's a handful of his over- and mis-used words:

Terrible
Horrible
Blasphemous
Unspeakable
Cyclopean
Infernal
Foul
Basalt

And don't try to justify his bad writing by saying, "Oh, but look at all the great writers he influence." So? That's doesn't somehow make his stuff lovable. Just because Quentin Tarrentino was influenced by all kinds of schlock material that doesn't make those movies any better. There. I've had my say.

Skip to the Future

2008-04-05T11:27:00.005-11:00

There are several "hot" technologies out right now that I'm making a conscious decision to avoid. The problem is that they're not really innovative, and will soon be subsumed by other, better technologies. Let's examine a few, shall we?

Apparently the Blu-Ray media format recently won the next-format wars. Actually, both formats were losers. That's because the "HD" (high-definition) was the real key, and not what it was being stored on. In fact, physical media is going to become increasingly irrelevant as downloads take over as the primary means of content distribution. I'm not going to buy a Blu-Ray player. Partly that's because they're so insanely expensive still. And the prices went up once retailers knew they had the consumer by the short and curlies! I'll build a home media computer with networked storage and streaming instead.

And then there's those new "energy saving" compact fluorescent light bulbs. They're significantly more expensive than the regular incandescent light bulbs. So they're energy savings take quite a while before they pay off the difference. And then there's the fact that their light isn't appealing to everyone. I'm going to hold off and wait for LED light bulbs to come on the market. LEDs consume little energy and they're not toxic waste. Yeah. Compact fluorescent require special handling and disposal methods. Oh, and don't break one on the floor!

Spafford Completeness

2008-03-29T17:02:00.002-11:00

Eugene "Spaf" Spafford is a professor of computer science at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. He is well known for being an early researcher into computer security (and the lack thereof). Needless to say he doesn't suffer from a shortage of work.

If you make the mistake of sending Spaf an email with a Microsoft Word attachment you'll receive a quick (indeed both instant and automated) response admonishing you for using document formats that allow for code execution. It is quite foolish to mix the two. But it also strikes upon a more fundamental truth: executing code is the root of all computer insecurity.

Thus was born the concept of the Spaf machine. It is similar in conception to the Turing machine, but quite different. The first principle of a Spaf machine is that only read operations are allowed. The second, and final, principle of a Spaf machine is that the tape is initialized to a random value. How that randomness is selected, what constitutes sufficiently random data, and where socks go in a dryer are all fluff questions best saved for a hash bar in Amsterdam.

"So what?" you might say. "All it does is read random bits. That's useless!" Au contraire! You are apparently not familiar with the idea of the infinite monkeys. Our application states that given enough time a Spaf machine would successfully render every email you would ever receive. But it would not execute a single bit of code! It is the first truly secure machine!

And Ye Shall Know Him by His Power Tie

2008-03-24T11:31:00.003-11:00

Can't decide who to vote for yet in the American presidential election? I can! But for those of you less-able proles I'll provide you with a short list from which you can pick. Make your mark heavy and dark with your extra large crayons!

Lord Voldemort. Keeping it simple. Strong anti-muggle agenda. Doesn't listen to the Death Eater lobby.

Max. Psychotic lagomorph with a hound dog, crime-fighting partner. What's a lagomorph? I don't know either. But you're already on the Internet so why don't you go find out?

Cthulhu. You can't possible be able to pronounce this blasphemous name. But humans were never expect to comprehend the infinite horrors of the Ancients.

Darth Vader. In these uncertain times feel secure in knowing that that isn't a moon. It's a space station.

Huxley Sez

2008-03-16T14:01:00.001-11:00

Aldous Huxley once said:

And it seems to me perfectly in the cards that there will be within the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing … a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods.

I submit that he was referencing reality television. He was more prescient than H.G. Wells!

Roger Clemens Versus the World

2008-02-13T11:33:00.002-11:00

As I listened to NPR today report on the baseball steroid hearings I came to a conclusion. The problem right now is that Clemens' old physical trainer and also a former teammate are saying that The Rocket shot up with steroids and human growth hormone (HGH). But Roger comes right back with the untouchable, "No I didn't!" The problem comes down to the fact that the committee has (as far as I understand it) no legal power to compel the type of evidence discovery as is necessary to prove anything here. For instance, the trainer claims to have kept syringes and bloody cotton balls he used when injecting Roger. Can those be tested? Can the committee require Clemens to submit to a DNA test? No! So it all becomes one person's word against another. After realizing that I suddenly lost all interest.

Cinco Anos

2008-02-07T15:41:00.000-11:00

I have a theory I would like to put forward. My theory is that no television show should run longer than five seasons. The Japanese are much better at this than us Americans. The reason for this is that once you have a fixed frame of reference you can properly pace your story arc(s). Look at shows that violate my theory: Stargate, Star Trek: Voyager, et.al. Everything gets repetitive and cyclical. The freshness is lost. And speaking of Lost they're the one show above any other that influenced my development of this highly scientific piece of work. Ponder these thoughts and reflect in their truth.

Language Multiplicity with Java

2008-02-06T16:58:00.006-11:00

Java is the single greatest programming language in the history of mankind. One of the many reasons why is the way Java integrates with various other languages.

JRuby is a set of Java classes that implement the Ruby interpreter. This allows Ruby code to run within a Java application.

But Ruby's not the only interpreted language that gets to play with Java. Python also has libraries to run its code from within Java. Its creative name is Jython...

Moving on from interpreted to scripted languages, Perl can interface with Java too. A Perl module exists to allow Perl code to call Java byte code. Java's not the online language that Perl can call on this way. Typically for Perl its called "inlining".

Last, but not least, is the venerable Lisp language. Lisp is one of the oldest computer languages. But there is recent work that allows you to compile Lisp into the same byte code that Java gets compiled into. In addition to using the same virtual machine, Lisp compiled into the Java byte code can call other byte code.

With this variety of evidence how can you deny that Java is truly the best programming language out there?

Wolverine Ain't So Tough Now

2008-02-04T16:36:00.001-11:00

It seems logical to think that Wolverine's healing ability based on bone marrow. But his bones are all fused with adamantium metal. In the X-Men movie it looks like his bones are solid, polished metal now. Wouldn't that prevent the bone marrow from helping with his healing factor? Or instead is the metal porous? That just leaves him vulnerable to poisons, virii, and leukemia! Wolverine's a wuss!

Computer Limmerick

2008-01-26T06:56:00.000-11:00

There once was a bit in a bucket
It got there by way of a socket
The IO pipe failed
And the process did bail
So the OS decided to chuck it

5-0x07-101

2008-01-26T06:54:00.000-11:00

Computer slows down,
Processes are frozen ice;
Blue screen death draws near.

Don't Reward Sony

2008-01-14T12:55:00.001-11:00

Back in the day Sony tried to corner a developing market with their own proprietary format in the hopes of reaping huge licensing fees from anyone publishing on the media. That format was Betamax, and I think most everyone know how that turned out (VHS FTW).

This time around instead of the VCR market Sony's gunning for high definition optical discs. Sony's format is the Blu-Ray standard while the opposing standard is HD-DVD. Now personally, I prefer HD-DVD because it's simpler due the the fact that the same laser that reads HD-DVDs is backwards compatible with regular DVDs. 10 points right there. Granted, Blu-Ray has a larger storage size, but not significantly enough to outweigh the fact that Blu-Ray plays need two separate lasers to support legacy DVDs. Sony also shoved their players out prematurely to not be behind the HD-DVD release. Those original players didn't fully implement the Blu-Ray standard. Most reviewers also couldn't discern much of a difference quality-wise in either's audio or video.

Now all the news is about how Blu-Ray is winning this high def war. If it wins then I think we all lose. Having an entire market beholden to a single primary source like Sony is bad for all consumers. We all need to speak out by voting with our pocket books for HD-DVD. Having said that, I've purchased neither yet. My early adopter ways have long fell by the wayside.

And as if you needed one more reason to not support Sony's standards-autocracy plans there's wireless USB. Wireless USB is going through standardization right now. But all of the sudden Sony smells blood and launches their own version, TransferJet. Coincidence? I think not! Fight the powah!

Word Association

2008-01-09T11:52:00.000-11:00

Remember the SAT test? Remember the word associations? Weren't they fun?! How about this one...

Alvin Toffler : hyperbole :: The Pope : Catholicism

2008

2008-01-06T15:01:00.001-11:00

A new year dawns on us all. That is if you follow the Gregorian calendar. Those on the Julian, Hebrew, Chinese, Vietnamese, or other can just go soak your heads.

I've begun this new season by expanding the non-blog entry content. Notice the "Blogosphere" side bar. There you'll find a collection of educational and/or entertaining blogs from around this find Intraweb of ours.

And it seems as if our $5 word is now worth €3.61.

VR FTW!

2007-12-22T12:01:00.000-11:00

This YouTube video is of a fellow who modified his Nintendo Wii remote for use as a head tracking unit that interfaces with his own software. Pretty freaking clever if you ask me. He uses it for a desktop VR display. Don't know what that is? Neither did I until I saw the video. He explains it very well and his examples are fun to watch. Here's a hint: it's not that helmet-y thing from Lawnmower Man.

(Credit goes to Apple Geeks for forwarding me to the video.)

Ogden Nash Inspiration

2007-12-14T12:11:00.000-11:00

My bumper goes ka-crunch
My grandfather's went ka-clunk
When it gently impacts
Someone else's trunk.

Silver bells, silver bells,
Its broken glass on the pavement.

Automobile accidents
Much like political precedents
Make everyone feel blameless

Annotate This

2007-12-10T13:04:00.000-11:00

Amazon.com's new Kindle e-book reader has seemingly revived interest in a technology long thought dead since the 1990s. Long live zombie tech! Everyone's excited because... well, because it's Amazon. That's not really a very good reason. Even Amazon themselves are excited so much so that they've set up their DNS servers to redirect kindle.amazon.com directly to their products page. Might be a bit of the old mod_rewrite action going on too.

An e-book's selling point is the ability to read text anywhere. But with the advent of the Internet that isn't so fancy. What killed the older editions of e-book readers was that they were based on LCD screen technology, which is really no easier on the eyes than any other display. The difference with the new readers is a technology call e-ink (catchy e-names straight out of the 90s also) that gives you resolutions on par with printed text so its easier on the eyes. So now text is portable and not painful to try and read. I argue that even this is not enough.

I personally find myself sketching out ideas on paper still. There's something about the free form nature of an open page that I need in order to express my thoughts. So my ideal e-book reader could double as a writing table. Additional features start to jump out. You could annotate your book with notes. Share annotations with other people (i.e. RSS feeds). E-book editions could justify their purchase by including annotations from various authors too! It'd also be handy if the screen didn't catch glares quite so easily...

The Kindle has numerous drawbacks. There is no native PDF display, which is key to people like me who have an armload of academic papers to carry around. Any reader of mine needs to be able to display the most common native file formats like PDF, (X)HTML, XML, etc. I'm not going to push for proprietary formats like Microsoft Word. There's also currently no scheme for people to share their books. Which leads me to my next point...

Digital Rights Mangement! DRM! Those three dread words. Now, I'm not against DRM as a matter of principle. Commercial publishers probably need a way to combat the pirating of their works, but the technology out to be more open. Buying a specific hardware platform ought not lock you into that maker's DRM scheme. Furthermore, platforms need to support multiple forms of DRM, and also support all non-DRM formats. A real advantage would be implementing a sharing feature. Party A could share a book with party B via a central server. A's copy is locked down while B's is active, and then its reversed when the loan is over. Of course, there would need to be some mechanism in place for when the unlocked copy is lost.

But there are alternatives out to the Kindle! Specifically the Sony Reader Digital Book and the iLiad by iRex (ignore the iStupid naming). I'm enthralled with the iLiad because it has the features I really want like free hand writing support plus its screen is the biggest yet. But I've noticed in this YouTube video that the speed of the iLiad's screen versus that of Sony's is painfully slow. Plus that whole-screen flicker every time you switch could get more annoying than trying to read from a computer monitor. No one champion in my book.

So it looks like I'm left wanting yet again. Maybe if the technology survives this time it'll advance enough in the next couple years that it meets my higher standards of quality. In the mean time I'm forced to pick and choose which books I'm dragging along for the holiday trips.

Problems in Social Science

2007-12-05T16:49:00.001-11:00

There seems to be a fundamental problem in social science today in America. The problems seem to stem from a strong groupthink. Social science areas of academia within the United States have an overwhelmingly liberal political stance that is hurting them in two distinct ways.

The first way is that it causes the general public not to take them seriously. This is because the political bias that social science has taken on deviates so many sigmas from the median that it doesn't represent a significant portion of the American public's views. That's not to say that social scientists need to adjust to public perceptions. But because of this disparity the public does not take social science seriously (as they ought), and mostly students who are already of the same political thought join, further reinforcing the groupthink.

Second, the social scientists are causing their own stagnation of ideas. Advancement of a science comes through discourse, and as such discourse requires opposing points of view. Those will become increasingly hard to find if the entire field only allows the propagation of ideas it deems acceptable. The irony is that this is something that is fashionable to criticize when it takes place outside of the social science sphere such as in areas like religion.

I'd like to think that this is a call to action. Or at least a catalyst for serious discussion. But this being the Internet I'm anticipating insults and libel.

Marty McWha?

2007-11-27T13:20:00.000-11:00

Thought provocation time. Remember the scene in Back to the Future when Marty is jamming on the guitar in the 1952 prom? The injured guitar player is yelling into the phone to a fellow named Charles, and identifies himself as a cousin with the last name of Berry. So weren't meant to believe that notable rock guitarist Chuck Berry got his influence from future shredder Marty.

The problem is that the song Marty is playing, Johnny B. Goode, was popularized by Chuck Berry himself. So what we end up with is a circular reference. How could Chuck Berry influence himself? It's almost like Phillip J. Fry being his own grandfather! That's today's gaping plot hole in a Hollywood movie for you.

Transformer Class Warfare

2007-11-08T10:53:00.000-11:00

I just got done watching that new Transformers movie. Well if that isn't the stereotypical Hollywood action movie that I was expecting it to be. Or, at least that's what I thought. Upon deeper inspection I realized that it was all just an allegory for class warfare! Yes, Karl Marx lives on in the form of a semi-truck tractor with a flame job!

You see, the movie's taught me that we're all being lied to. It's not the Decepticons that are our enemies, its those Autobots! The Decepticons represent the angry proletariat, rising up against their bourgeois oppressors, the Autobots. But the rabbit hole goes deeper! The classes are fighting over the Allspark, or in other words, the means of production.

I know, I know. In the movie the Decepticons are bad and try to kill humans while the Autobots protect humans. But its all propaganda I tell you! The movie was made to portray our rich oppressors as protectors who only have our best interests in mind. All lies! For Megatron!

No Mas Libros para Tu

2007-10-26T00:33:00.001-11:00

I'm done posting book reviews in the blog area. The fact of the matter is that I've been turned on to a site call Good Reads. It offers a formal mechanism for rating and reviewing titles. An added bonus is that they also have a Facebook plug-in. For those not in the know, I'm a big proponent of consolidating social networking services. Back in the day I had CollegeClub, Friendster, and Orkut. They all basically did the same thing but because my friends were scattered across these sites I had to be on all of them as well. Ignore the fact that we were all attention spans like a gnat and gladly jumped on whatever new service came out. But now this ability to add new functionality within a framework is something I can get behind.

Technology BS Ahoy!

2007-10-20T05:33:00.000-11:00

I was doing some self-study on the topics of SOAP and SSL today and came across this little gem of information. What really caught my eye is a sentence from the last paragraph that reads, "...since HTTP is stateless and entirely unreliable..." Wait, what? Hold up there, hoss. HTTP runs atop TCP, which is both stateful and reliable. So how does a protocol running on a reliable layer magically become unreliable? In all the computer science I've studied it can't. Maybe this fellow found a magical new field of study. The lesson is: beware the Internet my friends. This is crap out there.

If Nicholas Cage Could Act

2007-10-17T08:48:00.000-11:00

While listening to National Public Radio a few months back I heard about an interesting book called Merchant of Death by these two journalists. It chronicles the rise of a business empire owned by a Russian named Victor Bout. Bout is about as close to a real-life Lord of War (awkwardly played by Nicholas Cage) as you'll ever get. His myriad of companies specialize in air cargo, but somehow his planes always seem to be carrying some kind of weapons to parts of the world where people are eagerly killing one another (Sierra Leone, Liberia, Angola, Congo, Afghanistan, etc.).

The book itself is incredibly illuminating. The reporting is about as objective as I've ever read and chronicles in minute detail the inner workings of this gun running enterprise. It's frightening to think of how all this went on under the noses of the Western world while they were all busy patting themselves on the back for the fall of the Evil Empire.

Now, I can't give a complete review of the book at this time because I didn't quite finish it. My biggest complaint so far is that the book is as dry as the Mojave and as clinical as a prostate exam. The feel is of a series of newspaper articles glued together to make a book, which makes sense since the week after I got the book from the library I read another article on Bout in the Washington Post as written by one of the authors. I think it's because of these factors that I couldn't finish the book before it was due back at the liberry. Fear not! For I have re-reserved the book and as soon as the other five people before me are finished with it then I too shall finish it!

Renn Fest

2007-10-08T15:25:00.000-11:00

I spent an afternoon this past weekend at what is known as a "renaissance festival". Or you can call it the "renn fest" if you're as cool as Ol' Blue Eyes. However, no one there was remotely cool enough.

I've never understood the obsession with the renaissance period. European culture was just beginning to crawl out of the gutters of medieval times. Basic hygiene and sanitation were still just theories. Well, I guess they got that part right. Everyone focuses on things like adding pointless "e"s at the end of words and the clothes. And the clothes! Dear night take me now... There's a reason men don't wear cod pieces anymore. And my highly scientific research reports that 99% of the women there shouldn't go with the bustier look. It's much like squeezing a tube of toothpaste from the middle. Oh how I hate that too...

Goode nyght, and goode lucke.

Big Box Fun

2007-10-04T13:28:00.000-11:00

Last week I sat in on a presentation by a Wal-Mart representative about the proposed expansion of our neighborhood store. They're working on upping the floor area by about 50,000 square feet. If I had to summarize the experience I'd do so as: unequal expectations.

The Wal-Mart rep obviously came expecting a free feedback group because she brought all kinds of glossy artist renderings of the expansion. The theme was all about some prototype new facade that this store would have first, increased light in the store, and trying to keep shoppers longer.

The expectations of the neighborhood residents was about either improving the existing situation and/or preventing the expansion from happening. When the rep was asked pointedly about the possibility of blocking the expansion she did gave corporate answers about owning the property, etc. Long story short: it's a done deal, and that didn't make some people very happy.

I will say that people weren't shy about asking tough questions about things like the poor condition of the store and the dangerous traffic. She quickly got defensive and threw out useful links like the (completely unbiased) Wal-MartFacts.com. After a while she even started admitting that the store manager hadn't been doing his job, and assured everyone that the situation was being addressed. However, this didn't consist of the manager being fired.

A final note: apparently the Mid-Atlantic region is being condensed in terms of Wal-Mart regional responsibilities. My interpretation is that fewer people are getting more work. So I don't really have high hopes for the situation.

But is it Supercharged?

2007-09-19T15:42:00.000-11:00

Check out this video on Wired.com of a new, methane-powered rocke t. It looks and sounds really tightly tuned. It's like the engines on the old Saturn V's were the small block V8s of the 70s and this new engine is an Italian V10 ready for the new millenium. Did I forget to make a low-brow joke about it running on methane? Farts. There you go.

And to coincide with this new development NASA is hiring a bunch of new astronauts! Seriously! You can go and apply for yourself. They'll even supply you with all the diapers your crazy self desires!

Personally, I can remember getting jazzed about the Delta Clipper way back in the early nineties. Too bad that blew up. And now we've got all these private companies making serious headway. Scaled Composites already won the Ansari X-Prize for getting into space. Nothing orbital yet though. There's also Armadillo Aerospace, Blue Origin, and SpaceX to name a few more. Note: pretty much all of these companies are founded by really wealthy nerds with nothing better to do.

The Misunderstood Death of Adventure Games

2007-08-26T04:51:00.000-11:00

Adventure games were most video gamers' first exposures into the world of PC games, ignoring the arcade genre. Classics of the adventure genre shared features like side-rendered 2D graphics and test parsing interfaces.

But adventure games are almost completely gone now from store shelves. Editorials blame the death of the adventure game on the first person shooter (FPS). Among game purists there's a knee jerk reaction to blame the twitchy game blame of FPS for the down fall of adventure games. I think it's a little more complicated than that.

FPS's require a certain base level of technological development. Your CPU has to be fast enough and you memory large enough to really provide for the kind of environment that FPS's demand. Do you think that Wolfenstein would've worked well on the Atari 2600? Please.

Once the hardware was available it opened up this entire new genre, a genre that appealed to a much broader range of players. This is probably because the logical (and sometimes illogical) nature of adventure games presented a barrier to the casual player. FPS's, with their simple interfaces and play rules, provided a much lower barrier of entry to many new gamers. Unfortunately, game companies adhered to macro-economic principles and began producing mostly FPS games to maximize their revenue. And thus, the adventure game slipped away to be replaced by the FPS.

So who's to blame? Your own computer for one. Adam Smith for another. But the actual FPS players, even if they do come across as vapid and brain dead, don't deserve your scorn. Besides, if they really are as stupid as you think they are, why not just avoid them altogether?

And now I'll leave you with a list of great adventure games:

Under the Bleachers by Seymore Butts

2007-08-08T15:29:00.001-11:00

I just finished a book that was recommended to me called Under and Alone by a fellow named William Queen. Billy was an ATF agent that infiltrated the Mongols motorcycle gang and took down quite a few people.

The story itself is quite good: true to life tale of a good guy giving it his all to protect the rest of us from the worst of the worst. It's got all the elements of a Hollywood action movie right down to the conflicted hero.

This book does suffer from some problems though. The underlying problem is that I get the feeling that the book was ghost written. It just sounds like someone typing up a series of incidents that another person is relating. The chapters are somewhat disjoint and lacking cohesion, and it lacks the final emotional oomph that only the person who lived it could give it.

Overall I'd rate this book as four out of five sprockets.