Welcome to the new millennium

I played Pong when it came out.  Now, Pong has a new face, called Plasma Pong.  TBO reports on the game, which can download and play.  Very cool.

del.icio.us tags: technology, geek, games, graphics

A Little Privacy, Please -- [ DATA PROTECTION ]: Scientific American

Scientific American has a brief article on Latanya Sweeney, a researcher at MIT who is dedicated to increasing data privacy.  The read is interesting, but now I want more on her and her work - when I find it, it comes here. 

A Little Privacy, Please -- [ DATA PROTECTION ]: Scientific American

del.icio.us tags: privacy, science, geek

Maryland Professor Creates Desktop Supercomputer

Very cool, if it's real - desktop supercomputing with an easy programming model.  The UMD site has the same story, with a direct link to name the technology.  I'd rather see the API set the guy has come up with. 

Maryland Professor Creates Desktop Supercomputer

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84

I know it's not tech related, but I have yet to find a geek who hasn't read or enjoyed Vonnegut at some point in time, even if it's just Rodney Dangerfield asking Vonnegut if he read lips in "Back to School".

Link to Novelist Kurt Vonnegut dies at 84 - BOOKS - MSNBC.com

Judge throws out Internet blocking law

Good news for the online world - a federal court threw out the COPA bill (Child Online Protection Act).  I love this quote from Senior U.S. District judge Lowell Reed Jr.:

Perhaps we do the minors of this country harm if First Amendment protections, which they will with age inherit fully, are chipped away in the name of their protection.

Brilliant.  Absolutely brilliant.  It's refreshing to see this kind of thinking in a government official - kinda makes you wonder, though...

Compare this enlightened view from an appointed official to those of your elected officials.  I'm not in favor of appointing rulers, mind you, but someone who can think for themselves is a breath of fresh air in government.

Link to Judge throws out Internet blocking law - Security - MSNBC.com

del.icio.us tags: government, internet, online, libertarian

Bad day at the office, honey?

Back in the days after college, I was a sysadmin for a multi-machine Unix shop.  I remember my first week, when I was trying to free some space on the main machine.  SOP is to clear /tmp, right?  So off I go, logged in as root, and do ls -alF /tmp - filled to the gills.  So then I enter rm * to clear it - no worries right?

Of course, I had forgotten one small command - cd /tmp.  The good news was that only eight files were deleted.  The bad news was that pwd was /.  I had blown away the kernel, kernel backup, and a few other critical system files, and I got to pull them off the weekly backup before I got to go home that night.  What saved me was using rm * instead of rm -r *.  I wasn't fired, but I was chagrined.

On a bright note, at least the only thing I lost was a few hours - it could have been $38 billion dollars...

Link to Oops! Techie wipes out $38 billion fund - Tech News & Reviews - MSNBC.com

del.icio.us tags: technology, government, funny

Vigilante Hacker's Evidence Puts Judge Behind Bars - Technology News by InformationWeek

Read the story, but here's a short summary: A judge in Cali was sentenced for possession of child pornography.  The prime mover in this case was a hacker who let loose a Trojan on the judge's computers and found the evidence that was used to garner the guilty plea.

I'm not sure whether to be scared or not here.  Vigilantes with time on their hands, an axe to grind, and some coding skills rooting around in my machine for contraband?  While I agree that the hacker was not acting on behalf of the government and therefore did not violate the Fourth Amendment, that line can get really blurry really quick.  Let's say the evidence found pointed to a victimless crime (drug usage, prostitution, etc), something that is defined as illegal, but has no victim other than the amorphous "society".  At what point can any hacker-vigilante say he's not an agent of the government?  If you drink the government Kool-Aid, decide to be a vigilante P-I, and follow only your muse to the criminals that turn you on, the only thing missing from a Fourth Amendment violation is a prior government blessing.

And by not prosecuting the hacker (they've already found and ID'd him - Brian Willman in Canada), they're setting a very bad precedent.  As mentioned in the article, the tacit approval given opens the door for anyone to do the same thing for any reason as long as the evidence found leads to a conviction.  And while a U.S. Attorney has admonished people with a variation of "Don't try this at home, kids", that carries zero weight - we've already erased the old line and now have to figure out where to draw it again.  Until the new line is drawn, there will be people trying to push it further and further away from due process and privacy concerns, and closer to a Machiavellian "ends-justifies-the-means" interpretation of illegal activity.

Brad Willman, the hacker in this case, needs to be brought up on charges - let him argue and negotiate and plea-bargain, but he needs to be charged go through the process he set the judge up for.  We go after hackers and pirates in other countries all the time - why can't we go to Canada to get this guy?  And no, I don't care that he did us all a service (I agree he did, but that's no the point) - the next guy caught in this kind of net may be only a political subversive, or maybe just unpopular.  Why does Willman get to decide who has fingers pointed at them?

And in case you're still on the fence, pose the question differently - what if Willman had broken into your home, rummaged around while you weren't home looking for "contraband", and then setup hidden cameras so he could do so whenever he wanted to?  His Trojan did exactly that in the judge's computer.  Now ask yourself if you want your busy-body neighbor to be able to do the same, and it's all OK as long as they find something to charge you with.

OK, now I'm scared.

Link to Vigilante Hacker's Evidence Puts Judge Behind Bars - Technology News by InformationWeek

del.icio.us tags: government, technology, crime, canada, consitution, california

Software patents

I hate software patents.

Ever since I read about some company owning a patent on XORing a cursor on and off the screen, I've been a software patent hater.  Software copyrighting - no problems, no issues.  Software patents - nothing but big paychecks for lawyers with more vocabulary than sense.

So, with a disdain for software patents in mind, head to Betanews to read the latest on Microsoft v. AT&T - apparently, lawyers are trying to get the Supreme Court to say that electrons are patentable.  The Supremes blaked at patenting photons, though...

Gut reaction?  MS got caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and is now trying to redefine "hands" and "cookie jar".  I wonder what the backlash will be - if MS wins, then sending copies of Vista CD's overseas won't be a license violation.  I'm not sure what MS is trying to win here, but they better be careful what they wish for.

My one wish is that the Supremes do tackle the issue of whether software in patentable.  Of course, given their track record the past few years, they may find patents are legal, and that the whole of the American population is in violation and owes fines to AT&T.

UPDATE: More on this case from ZDNet.

del.icio.us tags: microsoft, patents, law

All good things...

...must come to an end.  And even some not so good things, to think about it.

Anyway, what's coming to an end?  Easy - support for old software, of course!  In this case, the old software is Windows XP Embedded with Service Pack 1, also called XPE SP1.  When is also easy - April 10, 2007 (that's Patch Tuesday in April, for those of you keeping score at home).  What this means is that the April Embedded Security Update Rollup CD will be the last one to contain any SP1 specific updates.

Full details can be found on the Embedded Team Blog, as well as the Mobile and Embedded Communications Extranet (also called the ECE).  Details on MS Lifecycle Policy can be found on, oddly enough, this Microsoft web page.

Why I don't read newspapers

Especially the New York Times.

Oh don't get me wrong - not all papers are crap, and the NYT isn't completely crap.  But as anyone can tell you, even a little crap is very noticable, even if you pretty it up with flowers and perfume...

Case in point: Edward Rothstein's article on Windows Vista.  Rothstein comes across as an "important art critic", a title I define as being a pretentious fool without being cluttered with actual artistic talent - someone who's made a living of not knowing what they like, but knowing "art".  And when he set his sights on Windows Vista, he let loose with so much metaphor and purple prose that I needed a full gallon of insulin to prevent me from entering diabetic shock.  (in fact, the only useful biographical info I can find on him is at Wikipedia, and it appears, as a composer, he some artistic talent - I stand corrected)

Rothstein waxes on semi-poetically about the cultural history of Microsoft, the "nightmare" of building his own PC and the "primitiveness" of current technology, but then seems to recover to praise the magic of alpha blending and 3D graphics hardware.  All in all, his pretentiousness, the superiority of his chosen naivete, the sheer unadulterated smell of his well articulated, artistically educated bullshit was too much.

At one point, he likens the craft of building a PC to that of old hot rodders, which is actually a good analogy - I don't hot rod, but I build models, and appreciate the work that goes into a real hot rod.  But he loses touch with reality when he says how hot rodders could take apart an engine to find out how it works, but modern PC builders can't do the same with circuit boards.  What a crock - it's called "digital electronics", Edward, and if I can't pry open the chip to see the traces, I can certainly look up specs and pinouts on the web or in books and figure it out myself.

To add to this thought, just because the less-than-easy to find options for customizing a PC are in the realms of overclocking doesn't mean that's what you're limited to - not every computer runs or has to run Vista, or Linux, or even Mac OS.  Head to your local Radio Shack and pick up a breadboard, some components, wires, and a CPU (Motorola still makes them for hobbyists).  Given some time and some know how, you can build your own computer, no more or less valid than anything you can buy from Dell.  It won't run Vista, but neither does your automobile, and it's got a computer in it, with an OS and various programs.

The more I read of this article, the less I thought of Rothstein and the people who read him.  His comments and ideas and bullshit add as much to the science of computers as my dissertation on the construction techniques of a pipe organ would add to the appreciation of Bach's organ cantatas.  It's mental masturbation, and the fact that he gets paid to spin mental circles, and people buy into him and his self-serving ideas, just goes to show how pervasive the need for religion - any religion - is.