Do any Canadians (perhaps only Ontarians) remember the ICON computers they used to have in elementary and high schools? The ICON, also known as the 'Bionic Beaver', was a computer manufactured by CEMCorp (Canadian Educational Microprocessor, IIRC) that was meant to bring data processing and computer skills to thousands of high-school students.
The design of the machine was interesting--intelligent nodes running an 80186 connected by ArcNet to a central server node--but they ran a version of QNX. I remember the slightly different set of commands than we are familiar with in UNIX: for example, to go up a directory, it was 'cd ^', files could be deleted with 'zap', and commands could be easily run on remote nodes by prefixing the command with [nodenum].
It was on this machine and OS that I cut my teeth in C, 80x86 assembly and basic networking concepts (I wrote a small multi-node chat program using the virtual circuit calls in QNX), and as such I was always have very fond memories of it. Thanks for letting me reminisce.:-) (BTW, if anyone has one and is planning on getting rid of it, I'd gladly take it off your hands.)
Agreed. In fact, I seem to remember there being a story on ABC World News Tonight or the NBC Nightly News (it obviously wasn't CBS, who was carrying the event) during the Nagano games which told of Americans as far south as Georgia, Florida, Texas, etc. with satellite dishes tuning into Anik E1 to see the CBC coverage, and how much more balanced and interesting it is than US coverage.
In fact, the formula for US network Olympic coverage seems to be as follows:
1. Find the most inspirational story as possible (dealing with an American athlete, of course--it means nothing that Stanislav grew up in complete poverty in Warsaw and still doesn't get enough to eat, because he's not American)
2. Plug it over and over and over with heartfelt vignettes and tear-jerker interview segments
3. Show the event with the inspirational athlete
4a. If said athlete wins, keep plugging the story. Interviews, talk about future endorsements, etc.
4b. If said athlete loses, mumble something about good competition, goto step 1 and repeat.
This, BTW, is just one of the many reasons I will never watch an Olympic event on a US network.
I *wanted* Toronto to get the 2008 Olympics: It would have given me a really good excuse to leave town for good!:)
I'd like to think they would have gotten it too if it weren't for Mel Lastman screwing it all up, but it's pretty clear that Beijing was going to be the winner well before the selection process began. What emperor Samaranch wants, Samaranch gets.
I used to live in Oakville, BTW, before I married an American girl and moved to Texas. I really miss the GTA, actually.
I know I'm replying to my own post, but it just occurred to me that the lack of independent Web media representation at the games would make an excellent YRO story or even something for Katz to write about. Was there a story run during the Sydney or Nagano Olympics about this? My brain doesn't have that much buffer space to remember stuff that far back.
The biggest accessibility mogul in my mind, though it really doesn't have to do with the usability of the site per se, is the restrictive conditions put on independent Web media reporting on the games. I believe the IOC did not give credentials to most Web media and have been very active in shutting down and censoring both pro-athlete fan sites and anti-IOC sites. (In fact, wasn't there an athlete who was enjoined from posting even an Olympic diary, Weblog style, for fear of IOC reprisals? Someone refresh me on the details if this rings a bell.)
Anyway, expect the only thing on the Web related to Olympic results of stories is the officially santioned site and NBC and the big media outlets who paid out their butts to cover the games. Everyone else is shut out. That's my accessibility mogul. (Gah--can we fire whoever came up with that expression?)
It seems to me, just given the broad and obvious nature of the granted patents, that maybe the USPTO ought to go with a personal presentation/interview format (almost like they do with permanent residency and naturalization applicants) as well as the traditional paper filing for a formal patent application. It would work a bit like this: Each person wishing to file a patent would do so in the normal way, and then a few weeks later would be sent a presentation time and date. He or she would have to justify and present the patent to the examiners, who would then have the opportunity to review and ask any questions of the petitioners.
Obviously, the big downside is the major hiring the USPTO would have to do to have enough presentation/interview slots available. I can't see how the pie-chart patent would have ever been granted with this process--I mean, how do you present such an obvious concept like that to a group of people and keep a straight face or not get booted from the room within 5 minutes?
Once the broadband growth issues are ironed out...
on
Broadband Obstacles
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· Score: 5, Interesting
...watch for the available content to become more and more dictated by the broadband providers. They had to sink a lot of money into building the networks (billions upon billions of dollar), and expect to recoup the cost somehow. One thing they can do is push their content (and thus the advertising space they sell) on you by limiting access to other sites via slowdowns or other disincentives. Imagine not being to access CBSNews.com or drudgereport.com, but having to get all online news from CNN.com if you're an AOL/Time-Warner company, of which CNN is a part.
This is essentially the argument that Lawrence Lessig makes in his latest book, but I suspect that if you see broadband growth progress slowing with falling profit margins and bigger expenditures to (slowly) expand the network, you'll begin to see this technique used a lot in the future.
Considering what is known in the XBox reverse engineering world right now, I am absolutely shocked (and pleasantly so) that someone has come up with an emulator so quickly. First of all, XBoxHacker reports that the BIOS has four copies of itself and a whole host of protections to make sure that hackers don't try to overwrite it with their own code. Secondly, the BIOS boot code is hidden somewhere and isn't actually in the BIOS that the processor chip sees when it starts up at FFFF:FFF0; the community surmises it's in a hidden ROM somewhere, which is making reverse engineering a much more difficult task.
I would love to know how these guys did it--and I'm not going to rule out that someone provided them with the XDK or a whole host of internal docs to accomplish this.
At any rate, massive, massive props. I'll bet Microsoft has visited that site a few times in the last couple days.;-)
Hey, if the Norwegian authorities determine that it is indeed illegal to distribute the DeCSS source code, does that mean that the Norwegian authorities will call the FBI to have US citizens arrested, detained and then extradited to stand trial in Norway?
I mean, after all, isn't that what the FBI does now? When a foreign national breaks a US law but is not currently in the country, we have foreign law enforcement authorities extradite them to the US to stand trial. The US government has been doing this for years--imagine if the Norwegian government began to do that same? The country would be devoid of DVD-owning Linux users.:-(
The TiVo is equipped with only a 50MHz PowerPC chip, IIRC. I remember when running RealPlayer on my PII-266 was like pulling teeth.
I'm just wondering if the poor little TiVo will be able to cope with all the rest of its housekeeping (like streaming the broadcast data to and from disk) and still have enough left to run Real's codec. Perhaps I underestimate the TiVo's CPU power here, but there are times when it definitely chugs (e.g. in displaying the menus after hitting the TiVo button on the remote--that can take up to 7 or 8 seconds in some cases).
Personalization? Creepy...
on
Making It Personal
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Am I the only one who thinks it's creepy that salescritters would use this sort of personalization tactic (for lack of a better term) in order to increase sales? My personality type (INTP) does not allow me to form personal bonds easily, and this holds true in business and personal situations.
If I have to deal with someone on the phone, whether it's to follow up on a sales call or to correct an error at the bank, I want it to be as impersonal and as efficient as possible. The more I feel like the salesdroid or CSR is trying to "get to know me", the more irritated and introverted I get, and the more likely I am not to continue using the services.
I have this weird feeling that a lot of sales/CSR tactics are designed with "older" people in mind; these are the types of people who most value and favour personal interaction with someone while performing some sort of transaction. I, on the other hand, being younger and more tech-savvy than many older folks, want things to be automated and efficient. (I go nuts when people in front of me at the store write checks, especially for smaller purchases. Have you heard of the ATM and debit cards yet, people?;-) )
Anyway, what I guess I'm trying to say is that I know quite a few people who would not find this technique effective on them at all, and I suppose I'm kinda shocked to see that it might be applied more universally if one were to follow the advice of this book.
Rev-eng feats never cease to amaze me
on
Samba Turns 10
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Mad, mad props to these guys for 10 years of work on a protocol that you know Microsoft has worked long and hard to obfuscate through a lack of literature and, to some extent, probably in the arrangement of information in each payload.
I also get the same feeling of awe when I see emulators for proprietary game systems released a very short time after the hardware is. For example, I spent some time writing a little game for the PlayStation to get my hands dirty, which I couldn't have done without the talents of the people who take the time to disassemble the ROMs, write the docs, produce the tools, and analyze the source code.
If there were some way I could contribute monetarily to the Samba project or even some of my time (I have done some rev-eng stuff myself, mostly on undocumented Palm libraries), I would gladly do it. These guys deserve major kudos.
Before entering the much more stable world of software engineering, I was a member of a band that had attained some local renown. In fact, we were told that there was some industry attention directed our way. We headlined at a gig one night in New York where A&R personnel from Maverick came to see us play.
One of my former band's members thought much the same as you did, as did I--we should shun any major-label deals and keep playing gigs and promoting ourselves through mailings, on-line and selling CDs/T-shirts/etc. at each show. We knew that signing a major-label deal would be, in essence, selling our solus to the devil and that we might never see the rights to our songs (on which we all took co-writer credits) ever again. And this was scary enough to persuade us, after careful consideration, not to sign any deals.
But the stress of promoting ourselves, without major backing or assistance from a label, ended up taking away from the sheer joy that we got making our music, and ended up in the long run causing us to give up the band. If we had sold our souls, we'd have had a lot more support in directing and marketing our music and probably could have concentrated on the songwriting and performance aspects. But despite everything we did--we had a newsletter, Web site, MP3 downloads of sample songs, fans who were willing to sell our merchandise at shows, it just ended up being a lot of work. We had to hustle for our own radio interviews, club dates, write-ups in the paper, etc. It really is frustrating and does take up a lot of time (kinda like the management vs. programming aspect of my job now).
In conclusion, while it may be easy to say 'do it all yourself--shun the labels and promote and market yourselves', it really isn't as easy as all that. I wish it had been.
TuxRacer is good on two fronts: they are Linux-friendly and they have an Open Source version (although it is older than the commercial one).
If I may be slightly off-topic here, I'd like to see more people involved in creating Linux games. Unlike developing for a console, there are plenty of freely available docs and tools to make it happen. Take a look for example at plib, a portable scene graph/geometry/network enabler/GUI/sound library intended for games. It's Open Source, GPLed, has a great, easy-to-understand C++ interface, and is overall a good thing. I've been using it for nearly six months, and I can't believe the ease with which I've been able to create a couple of little games. I'd love to see more Linux-based Open Source games based around plib.
About a decade ago, there were a set of articles in Radio-Electronics magazine (now, I believe, integrated with Popular Electronics--correct me if I'm wrong) that featured a build-it-yourself power line modem, working from the serial port as a standard modem with a maximum rate of 9600 baud.
One of the more interesting things in the article, if I remember correctly, is one of the issues brought up in this one, that is, data being 'transmitted' into a neighbour's home. The article mentioned that a capacitor with a large enough working voltage, placed across the incoming power lines to the house, would allow the signal to be transmitted beyond the basement breaker box. In other words, without the capacitor, there was no signal 'leakage'.
Please don't go trying this at home, though--I'm not going to be held responsible for crispy geeks who tasted too much 120V AC.:-)
Not that I don't think this thing is really cool, but the name Lik-Sang rang a few bells in my head. I have not dealt with them directly, but I have heard a number of reports, many of them on XBoxHacker.net, of Lik-Sang screwing up orders and shipping faulty equipment. One story had Lik-Sang shipping a faulty device out to a customer, who then sent it back only to have his same device returned to him.
Once again, I cannot stress enough that I have not dealt with Lik-Sang ever, but that I have heard enough tales from dissatisfied customers that I would exercise a lot of caution with their products or reports.
Program to help customers of distressed ISPs maintain broadband service
...yet were they not one of those very distressed ISPs before this resurrection? What happens if they go down? They provide their service to their... previous... customers whom they cut off? Ach, it's all too recursive for me.;-)
It's good to see this simply because cross-Web architectures will no longer be left to companies like Microsoft, who will then try to push DCOM and other incompatible technologies on software companies and, ultimately, consumers. While you may like or dislike DCOM and similar technologies, these closed standards make interoperability difficult and the lack of an open steering group can only harm future developments in this area.
Also, I'm heartened to see big names with good cred involved in the process. This is not a group of no-names we're talking about here; these are knowledgeable people with a solid background in the matter, and this can only be good for the future direction of these technologies.
I think it's a given that any set-top box that you buy today (TiVo, ReplayTV, anything by Microsoft) is likely going to track viewing habits and use that data for market research. I'm not 100% against the concept--if it means that there will be more shows that I actually like, I think it's a good thing. What we have to worry about is when the media line is crossed, where the data is used to target you for direct mailings, telemarketers, spam even.
Imagine you are watching TV, and you watch a lot of National Geographic. Suddenly, you find yourself getting magazine subscription requests in the mail, telephone calls from NG about becoming a member, and e-mail in your Inbox about the Web site, all just from watching TV. This is something we need to remain vigilant about, that the companies don't use the data they collect in an all-out attempt to sell us their wares (no pun intended).
I hear you loud and clear. CBL (Radio 1 on 740kHz out of Toronto) used to make it down as far south, and reguarly, as Indianapolis and Cincinnati, broadcasting at 50kW. Now that it's on FM, both countries lose: the FM signal is almost inaudible outside of the 416, and it's not even in stereo, and it's inaccessible in the US.
Definitely good broadcasting though--I find myself craving As It Happens, The Muckracker, Madly Off In All Directions and most other Radio 1 programs all the time. Thank God for the streaming audio.
...to make it a bona fide hit is not all the different genres of music and talk on all those channels, but they need to include the signals of international radio broadcasters like CBC, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, RTE, etc.
Myself, I would be more than happy to pony up $12/mo to hear CBC Radio 1 here in Texas. Simply put, the quality of international broadcasting tends to be far greater than almost anything on my FM dial (except for NPR, which is quite good). I think the satellite radio companies are neglecting the huge expatriate audience their service would find here. This could be a good thing for the satellite radio companies, who would pull in more listeners, and some of the money could return to the broadcasters to augment their services and schedules.
This is true. I am a scanner listener of nearly 15 years now and listen to the local repeater all the time (while not listening to the local PD/EMS/FD). Sadly, the ham radio hobby has been in decline for several years, brought down even harder by the growth of the Internet. I wouldn't call the ham radio spectrum 'huge', but it is what I consider to be the last bastion of the non-corporate spectrum and thus deserves our full support.
Low-power FM was touted to be a great thing for free speech. It was to open up very low-power community FM transmitters, provided (of course) that they didn't interfere with any existing broadcast signal. This would have given voices to community groups, schools, churches, outreach organizations, etc.
There was broad political and popular support for it--but (you know what's coming) the major radio broadcasters lobbied like sons of bitches to have it turned down, using a lame excuse of interference and degradation of signal. Eventually, if I remember correct, LPFM was killed as a last-minute amendment to a bill, an amendment bought by lobbyists no doubt representing Clear Channel Communications and the other bigwigs that bring us the same pap we hear on every FM station in this country.
Don't let big corporations continue to buy up all the bandwidth and hold us hostage with it. We need to get LPFM back on track. Hell, support your local pirate radio station by just listening. You'll be seeing the effect that LPFM should be bringing us and you'll actually hear differing viewpoints, and--dare I say it?--interesting programming.
Slashdot Mirror
Do any Canadians (perhaps only Ontarians) remember the ICON computers they used to have in elementary and high schools? The ICON, also known as the 'Bionic Beaver', was a computer manufactured by CEMCorp (Canadian Educational Microprocessor, IIRC) that was meant to bring data processing and computer skills to thousands of high-school students.
:-) (BTW, if anyone has one and is planning on getting rid of it, I'd gladly take it off your hands.)
The design of the machine was interesting--intelligent nodes running an 80186 connected by ArcNet to a central server node--but they ran a version of QNX. I remember the slightly different set of commands than we are familiar with in UNIX: for example, to go up a directory, it was 'cd ^', files could be deleted with 'zap', and commands could be easily run on remote nodes by prefixing the command with [nodenum].
It was on this machine and OS that I cut my teeth in C, 80x86 assembly and basic networking concepts (I wrote a small multi-node chat program using the virtual circuit calls in QNX), and as such I was always have very fond memories of it. Thanks for letting me reminisce.
Agreed. In fact, I seem to remember there being a story on ABC World News Tonight or the NBC Nightly News (it obviously wasn't CBS, who was carrying the event) during the Nagano games which told of Americans as far south as Georgia, Florida, Texas, etc. with satellite dishes tuning into Anik E1 to see the CBC coverage, and how much more balanced and interesting it is than US coverage.
In fact, the formula for US network Olympic coverage seems to be as follows:
1. Find the most inspirational story as possible (dealing with an American athlete, of course--it means nothing that Stanislav grew up in complete poverty in Warsaw and still doesn't get enough to eat, because he's not American)
2. Plug it over and over and over with heartfelt vignettes and tear-jerker interview segments
3. Show the event with the inspirational athlete
4a. If said athlete wins, keep plugging the story. Interviews, talk about future endorsements, etc.
4b. If said athlete loses, mumble something about good competition, goto step 1 and repeat.
This, BTW, is just one of the many reasons I will never watch an Olympic event on a US network.
I *wanted* Toronto to get the 2008 Olympics: It would have given me a really good excuse to leave town for good! :)
I'd like to think they would have gotten it too if it weren't for Mel Lastman screwing it all up, but it's pretty clear that Beijing was going to be the winner well before the selection process began. What emperor Samaranch wants, Samaranch gets.
I used to live in Oakville, BTW, before I married an American girl and moved to Texas. I really miss the GTA, actually.
I know I'm replying to my own post, but it just occurred to me that the lack of independent Web media representation at the games would make an excellent YRO story or even something for Katz to write about. Was there a story run during the Sydney or Nagano Olympics about this? My brain doesn't have that much buffer space to remember stuff that far back.
The biggest accessibility mogul in my mind, though it really doesn't have to do with the usability of the site per se, is the restrictive conditions put on independent Web media reporting on the games. I believe the IOC did not give credentials to most Web media and have been very active in shutting down and censoring both pro-athlete fan sites and anti-IOC sites. (In fact, wasn't there an athlete who was enjoined from posting even an Olympic diary, Weblog style, for fear of IOC reprisals? Someone refresh me on the details if this rings a bell.)
Anyway, expect the only thing on the Web related to Olympic results of stories is the officially santioned site and NBC and the big media outlets who paid out their butts to cover the games. Everyone else is shut out. That's my accessibility mogul. (Gah--can we fire whoever came up with that expression?)
Heh. I initially read superiching.com as superitching.com, and I was just wondering what the market was for prank itching powder e-commerce.
;-)
Hmmm... now that I think about it... (goes off to register superitching.com)
---
Some say Netware is just like a wheel/ When you abend it, you can't mend it
It seems to me, just given the broad and obvious nature of the granted patents, that maybe the USPTO ought to go with a personal presentation/interview format (almost like they do with permanent residency and naturalization applicants) as well as the traditional paper filing for a formal patent application. It would work a bit like this: Each person wishing to file a patent would do so in the normal way, and then a few weeks later would be sent a presentation time and date. He or she would have to justify and present the patent to the examiners, who would then have the opportunity to review and ask any questions of the petitioners.
Obviously, the big downside is the major hiring the USPTO would have to do to have enough presentation/interview slots available. I can't see how the pie-chart patent would have ever been granted with this process--I mean, how do you present such an obvious concept like that to a group of people and keep a straight face or not get booted from the room within 5 minutes?
...watch for the available content to become more and more dictated by the broadband providers. They had to sink a lot of money into building the networks (billions upon billions of dollar), and expect to recoup the cost somehow. One thing they can do is push their content (and thus the advertising space they sell) on you by limiting access to other sites via slowdowns or other disincentives. Imagine not being to access CBSNews.com or drudgereport.com, but having to get all online news from CNN.com if you're an AOL/Time-Warner company, of which CNN is a part.
This is essentially the argument that Lawrence Lessig makes in his latest book, but I suspect that if you see broadband growth progress slowing with falling profit margins and bigger expenditures to (slowly) expand the network, you'll begin to see this technique used a lot in the future.
I didn't believe it for a minute. The grammar and spelling are too good for it to be legitimate. :-)
---
Some say Netware is just like a wheel/ When you abend it, you can't mend it
Considering what is known in the XBox reverse engineering world right now, I am absolutely shocked (and pleasantly so) that someone has come up with an emulator so quickly. First of all, XBoxHacker reports that the BIOS has four copies of itself and a whole host of protections to make sure that hackers don't try to overwrite it with their own code. Secondly, the BIOS boot code is hidden somewhere and isn't actually in the BIOS that the processor chip sees when it starts up at FFFF:FFF0; the community surmises it's in a hidden ROM somewhere, which is making reverse engineering a much more difficult task.
;-)
I would love to know how these guys did it--and I'm not going to rule out that someone provided them with the XDK or a whole host of internal docs to accomplish this.
At any rate, massive, massive props. I'll bet Microsoft has visited that site a few times in the last couple days.
Hey, if the Norwegian authorities determine that it is indeed illegal to distribute the DeCSS source code, does that mean that the Norwegian authorities will call the FBI to have US citizens arrested, detained and then extradited to stand trial in Norway?
:-(
I mean, after all, isn't that what the FBI does now? When a foreign national breaks a US law but is not currently in the country, we have foreign law enforcement authorities extradite them to the US to stand trial. The US government has been doing this for years--imagine if the Norwegian government began to do that same? The country would be devoid of DVD-owning Linux users.
The TiVo is equipped with only a 50MHz PowerPC chip, IIRC. I remember when running RealPlayer on my PII-266 was like pulling teeth.
I'm just wondering if the poor little TiVo will be able to cope with all the rest of its housekeeping (like streaming the broadcast data to and from disk) and still have enough left to run Real's codec. Perhaps I underestimate the TiVo's CPU power here, but there are times when it definitely chugs (e.g. in displaying the menus after hitting the TiVo button on the remote--that can take up to 7 or 8 seconds in some cases).
Am I the only one who thinks it's creepy that salescritters would use this sort of personalization tactic (for lack of a better term) in order to increase sales? My personality type (INTP) does not allow me to form personal bonds easily, and this holds true in business and personal situations.
;-) )
If I have to deal with someone on the phone, whether it's to follow up on a sales call or to correct an error at the bank, I want it to be as impersonal and as efficient as possible. The more I feel like the salesdroid or CSR is trying to "get to know me", the more irritated and introverted I get, and the more likely I am not to continue using the services.
I have this weird feeling that a lot of sales/CSR tactics are designed with "older" people in mind; these are the types of people who most value and favour personal interaction with someone while performing some sort of transaction. I, on the other hand, being younger and more tech-savvy than many older folks, want things to be automated and efficient. (I go nuts when people in front of me at the store write checks, especially for smaller purchases. Have you heard of the ATM and debit cards yet, people?
Anyway, what I guess I'm trying to say is that I know quite a few people who would not find this technique effective on them at all, and I suppose I'm kinda shocked to see that it might be applied more universally if one were to follow the advice of this book.
Mad, mad props to these guys for 10 years of work on a protocol that you know Microsoft has worked long and hard to obfuscate through a lack of literature and, to some extent, probably in the arrangement of information in each payload.
I also get the same feeling of awe when I see emulators for proprietary game systems released a very short time after the hardware is. For example, I spent some time writing a little game for the PlayStation to get my hands dirty, which I couldn't have done without the talents of the people who take the time to disassemble the ROMs, write the docs, produce the tools, and analyze the source code.
If there were some way I could contribute monetarily to the Samba project or even some of my time (I have done some rev-eng stuff myself, mostly on undocumented Palm libraries), I would gladly do it. These guys deserve major kudos.
Before entering the much more stable world of software engineering, I was a member of a band that had attained some local renown. In fact, we were told that there was some industry attention directed our way. We headlined at a gig one night in New York where A&R personnel from Maverick came to see us play.
One of my former band's members thought much the same as you did, as did I--we should shun any major-label deals and keep playing gigs and promoting ourselves through mailings, on-line and selling CDs/T-shirts/etc. at each show. We knew that signing a major-label deal would be, in essence, selling our solus to the devil and that we might never see the rights to our songs (on which we all took co-writer credits) ever again. And this was scary enough to persuade us, after careful consideration, not to sign any deals.
But the stress of promoting ourselves, without major backing or assistance from a label, ended up taking away from the sheer joy that we got making our music, and ended up in the long run causing us to give up the band. If we had sold our souls, we'd have had a lot more support in directing and marketing our music and probably could have concentrated on the songwriting and performance aspects. But despite everything we did--we had a newsletter, Web site, MP3 downloads of sample songs, fans who were willing to sell our merchandise at shows, it just ended up being a lot of work. We had to hustle for our own radio interviews, club dates, write-ups in the paper, etc. It really is frustrating and does take up a lot of time (kinda like the management vs. programming aspect of my job now).
In conclusion, while it may be easy to say 'do it all yourself--shun the labels and promote and market yourselves', it really isn't as easy as all that. I wish it had been.
TuxRacer is good on two fronts: they are Linux-friendly and they have an Open Source version (although it is older than the commercial one).
If I may be slightly off-topic here, I'd like to see more people involved in creating Linux games. Unlike developing for a console, there are plenty of freely available docs and tools to make it happen. Take a look for example at plib, a portable scene graph/geometry/network enabler/GUI/sound library intended for games. It's Open Source, GPLed, has a great, easy-to-understand C++ interface, and is overall a good thing. I've been using it for nearly six months, and I can't believe the ease with which I've been able to create a couple of little games. I'd love to see more Linux-based Open Source games based around plib.
About a decade ago, there were a set of articles in Radio-Electronics magazine (now, I believe, integrated with Popular Electronics--correct me if I'm wrong) that featured a build-it-yourself power line modem, working from the serial port as a standard modem with a maximum rate of 9600 baud.
:-)
One of the more interesting things in the article, if I remember correctly, is one of the issues brought up in this one, that is, data being 'transmitted' into a neighbour's home. The article mentioned that a capacitor with a large enough working voltage, placed across the incoming power lines to the house, would allow the signal to be transmitted beyond the basement breaker box. In other words, without the capacitor, there was no signal 'leakage'.
Please don't go trying this at home, though--I'm not going to be held responsible for crispy geeks who tasted too much 120V AC.
Not that I don't think this thing is really cool, but the name Lik-Sang rang a few bells in my head. I have not dealt with them directly, but I have heard a number of reports, many of them on XBoxHacker.net, of Lik-Sang screwing up orders and shipping faulty equipment. One story had Lik-Sang shipping a faulty device out to a customer, who then sent it back only to have his same device returned to him.
Once again, I cannot stress enough that I have not dealt with Lik-Sang ever, but that I have heard enough tales from dissatisfied customers that I would exercise a lot of caution with their products or reports.
Check out their Web page:
...yet were they not one of those very distressed ISPs before this resurrection? What happens if they go down? They provide their service to their... previous... customers whom they cut off? Ach, it's all too recursive for me. ;-)
Program to help customers of distressed ISPs maintain broadband service
Well, I thought it was funny...
It's good to see this simply because cross-Web architectures will no longer be left to companies like Microsoft, who will then try to push DCOM and other incompatible technologies on software companies and, ultimately, consumers. While you may like or dislike DCOM and similar technologies, these closed standards make interoperability difficult and the lack of an open steering group can only harm future developments in this area.
Also, I'm heartened to see big names with good cred involved in the process. This is not a group of no-names we're talking about here; these are knowledgeable people with a solid background in the matter, and this can only be good for the future direction of these technologies.
I think it's a given that any set-top box that you buy today (TiVo, ReplayTV, anything by Microsoft) is likely going to track viewing habits and use that data for market research. I'm not 100% against the concept--if it means that there will be more shows that I actually like, I think it's a good thing. What we have to worry about is when the media line is crossed, where the data is used to target you for direct mailings, telemarketers, spam even.
Imagine you are watching TV, and you watch a lot of National Geographic. Suddenly, you find yourself getting magazine subscription requests in the mail, telephone calls from NG about becoming a member, and e-mail in your Inbox about the Web site, all just from watching TV. This is something we need to remain vigilant about, that the companies don't use the data they collect in an all-out attempt to sell us their wares (no pun intended).
I hear you loud and clear. CBL (Radio 1 on 740kHz out of Toronto) used to make it down as far south, and reguarly, as Indianapolis and Cincinnati, broadcasting at 50kW. Now that it's on FM, both countries lose: the FM signal is almost inaudible outside of the 416, and it's not even in stereo, and it's inaccessible in the US.
Definitely good broadcasting though--I find myself craving As It Happens, The Muckracker, Madly Off In All Directions and most other Radio 1 programs all the time. Thank God for the streaming audio.
...to make it a bona fide hit is not all the different genres of music and talk on all those channels, but they need to include the signals of international radio broadcasters like CBC, BBC World Service, Deutsche Welle, RTE, etc.
Myself, I would be more than happy to pony up $12/mo to hear CBC Radio 1 here in Texas. Simply put, the quality of international broadcasting tends to be far greater than almost anything on my FM dial (except for NPR, which is quite good). I think the satellite radio companies are neglecting the huge expatriate audience their service would find here. This could be a good thing for the satellite radio companies, who would pull in more listeners, and some of the money could return to the broadcasters to augment their services and schedules.
This is true. I am a scanner listener of nearly 15 years now and listen to the local repeater all the time (while not listening to the local PD/EMS/FD). Sadly, the ham radio hobby has been in decline for several years, brought down even harder by the growth of the Internet. I wouldn't call the ham radio spectrum 'huge', but it is what I consider to be the last bastion of the non-corporate spectrum and thus deserves our full support.
Low-power FM was touted to be a great thing for free speech. It was to open up very low-power community FM transmitters, provided (of course) that they didn't interfere with any existing broadcast signal. This would have given voices to community groups, schools, churches, outreach organizations, etc.
There was broad political and popular support for it--but (you know what's coming) the major radio broadcasters lobbied like sons of bitches to have it turned down, using a lame excuse of interference and degradation of signal. Eventually, if I remember correct, LPFM was killed as a last-minute amendment to a bill, an amendment bought by lobbyists no doubt representing Clear Channel Communications and the other bigwigs that bring us the same pap we hear on every FM station in this country.
Don't let big corporations continue to buy up all the bandwidth and hold us hostage with it. We need to get LPFM back on track. Hell, support your local pirate radio station by just listening. You'll be seeing the effect that LPFM should be bringing us and you'll actually hear differing viewpoints, and--dare I say it?--interesting programming.