...more recent posts
The folks at Temple ov thee Lemur have built a stripped down web server run on the electircal current generated by potatoes. Nice. Today's picture shows the power supply. Apparently, it takes about a dozen potatoes to run the thing, and they change the potatoes "every few days." You can get served an actual page from the spud server at http://152.78.65.48:2300, but since slashdot is running the story right now you probably won't get through. I remember doing experiments in science class when I was young where we would hook up potatoes to power a tiny lightbulb. I remember wondering why we don't power everything this way since you can just grow the things in the ground (and then eat them when they run out of power,) and I have to admit that I am still wondering the same thing.
Thanks to V & S for their weekend hospitality. With all this rain, Long Island is LUSH. Nice to get away from the keyboard for a day and a half. Hey, my hands don't hurt today!
I didn't mean for this page to only be about privacy/security issues, but these seem to be the most important things going on right now. Here's the latest. Real (makers of the Realplayer which allows you to view streaming audio and video compressed in the real formats - file type: .rm) has a nifty new way to spy on you. I don't use any Real products after the last privacy fiasco, but undaunted by that bad press, they're back with an even more intrusive scheme. Installing the new Real software now places a program called Download Demon on your computer. This program, without any warning, is installed as the DEFAULT Download manager for your browser (strike one.) If you use your browser for FTP connections, the Download Demon quietly records the URL and filename of every file you download (strike two) and (again quietly, without any prompting) connects to Real and uploads this info to the mothership (strike three - please delete all Real products from your computer.) This is according to the very reliable TBTF. I'm not going to test this myself, but I will continue to follow the story. I almost think this couldn't possibly be true, as it seems illegal at best, but stranger things have happened... I mean, sure, the FTP connection is monitored already, but I don't need additional monitoring from the private sector. Big business is free to PAY me for my personal data (if I accept their offer, which I won't,) but really this is getting ridiculous.
Whoops. I've been away for 2 days and the place is falling apart. Seem to have lost a few threads (although everything is there in the database.) Not sure what the deal is, but probably has something to do with those changes I made (and didn't really test too much) before I left. I'll get it sorted first thing in the morning. Sorry.
The more you learn the more you wonder who the hell is in charge. Apparently Microsoft Outlook surpresses the file type extension on attachments (i.e., the .vbs or .exe part of the filename.) Huh? I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this. Apparently nobody told Janet Reno about this because her advice (which was mine also) to not open files that have the .vbs extension doesn't make much sense (since you can't see the .vbs by default in Outlook.) This makes the virus situation much more difficult to deal with. I am led to believe that you can disable this surpression (it is on by default, but changeable.) Unfortunately I do not know how to go about doing this, but you might want to look into this if you are using Outlook. Look for something in Preferences that mentions attachments and extensions or file type. And while we are on the subject, here is a great summary of the kind of crap that Redmond tries to pull. You've got to love bug business. (I swear that was a typo, but I'm not going to fix it.)
Some views of the construction of a hypercube for your viewing pleasure today. If you start with a point (one dimension) and extend it in one direction you get a line. Now, perpendicular to the last extension, extend the line and you get a plane. Extend the plane (again, perpendicular to the last movement) and you fill in a cube. And then comes the hard part to visualize: extend the cube (somehow perpendicular to the last movement) and you get a hypercube. Strange. Hard to imagine. Different viewing angles give very different views of this shape. Dali used the unfolded version of the hypercube 
In many science fiction tales (I remember those Madeline L'engel children's books) the hypercube (tesseract) is used as a teleportation device. Much like a maze drawn in 2 dimension (like on paper) is trivial if you can pick up your pen (into the higher, 3rd dimension) and put it back down at the exit, a 3 dimensional being could appear to transport to a different (non contiguous) part of space by having access to the higher dimensional hypercube.
Another virus for the windows/outlook express crowd. I'm rather puzzled by the press coverage though. This one is nasty, sure. Tries to erase your hard drive. Not nice. But come on, this is easy to deal with. These virus' are written in Visual Basic (snickers from the stuck up geeks.) In order to execute, a visual basic file name must end in '.vbs'. Another extension to watch out for is '.exe'. The answer to 99% of these problems is just to look at the extension on any attachment you receive (even from a name you trust.) If it ends in either .vbs or .exe throw it in the trash. Simple. I wonder if these news agencies feel they will be liable in some way if they give any advice. Strange that they hype it up so much, and talk about virus protection programs, and never just say how easy it is to watch your own back. Or is it that they think people are sort of stupid?
Some talk at Hack the Planet about Apple's old Newton PDA. Made me wonder about a few things. First some background. Everybody is reporting that the much rumored Apple branded Palm Pilot is not happening. Apple is officially saying they have NO PDA in development. This has left the door open, and led people to speculate that the widely reported PDA effort at Apple has morphed into a tablet web appliance type thing (thus allowing for top brass to mislead people with the no pda line - "well, it's not a pda, it's a tablet.") Fine. This sounds reasonable. With Apple's proven knack for industrial design, the web appliance category is clearly in their sites. (Really, I think only Sony can challenge them, although placing Apple so high on the list of future powers might seem bizarre to some people.) This will be a huge market. Probably much bigger than the whole PC market. So, what is this thing going to run. Strongarm? I don't think so. G3? Too hot, too high of a power drain. G4? No. Same reasons, plus, Motorolla can't even supply enough for the desktop line. So what's the deal? Could it be that porting Darwin to x86 (which is NOT porting OS X to x86, but is a first step) is a prelude to bringing Transmeta on board? A transmeta powered, Apple branded, OS X running, wireless (airport) tablet? Pure speculation.
Can you identify today's picture? (I know, cheap humor, plus it's been around a lot, but hey, it's all I could find.)
I've been ignoring this one because it seems way too crazy to actually pass. Unfortunately it has already passed the Senate, and is waiting on a vote in the house. I guess it would be struck down eventually in the courts even if it did make it into law, but still... (Don't rant, don't rant, don't rant...) All I'm going to say is that I am definitely moving out of the coutry if this one passes. Here's the full text of the bill.