August 31, 2006
Let's play Global Thermonuclear War [ Software ]
Whoa. This looks cool:
DEFCON by Introversion software
Apologies to WarGames. :)
August 22, 2006
Another press conference [ Politics ]
So Mr Bush finally admits that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11:
BUSH: .... You know, I've heard this theory about, you know, everything was just fine until we arrived and, you know, kind of -- the "stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East. They were --QUESTION: What did Iraq: have to do with that?
BUSH: What did Iraq: have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody's ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq: was a -- Iraq: -- the lesson of September the 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken.
Nobody's ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq. I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective. I have made that case. And one way to defeat that -- you know, defeat resentment, is with hope. And the best way to do hope is through a form of government.
August 21, 2006
Where will you find the equal of the English golfclub? [ Geekiness ]
Oh my, Anglophile spamtext. This is rather amusing. Be so kind as to click below to peruse the source of this auto-generated spam derived from The Apple Cart by George Bernard Shaw.
Continue reading "Where will you find the equal of the English golfclub?"August 18, 2006
A better distributed computing project [ Software ]
I've been a long-time dnetc user - the bovine's cute, it's fun converting electrons into packets of RC5 crack attempts - but lately I've been looking for a better distributed computing project to work on. Maybe it's just the thousand-year projected end-date for RC5-72, but I think I'd rather have my CPU cycles go towards something a wee bit more worthwhile than proving that yet another crypto cipher with a horrdendously huge keyspace can be broken.
The World Community Grid is a joint effort between United Devices (where many of the distributed.net guys actually work) and IBM. UD is also responsible for grid.org, which now refers people to the World Community Grid site.
They have an easy-to-install Windows client, plus Mac and Linux support via BOINC; and they're working on some really worthwhile projects, like defeating cancer, human proteome folding and fighting AIDS. If you're currently crunching away on crypto or mathematics projects, or looking for extraterrestrial radio signals, maybe you can consider lending some CPU cycles to projects that benefit humanity in a more direct fashion.
August 17, 2006
We're going to pretend this never happened. [ Geekiness ]
It's been on the Slashdots and Digg already, but these are funny. Star Trek Inspirational Posters! (Also see Demotivators).
My favorites:
"CONTINUITY - We're going to pretend this never happened."
"TWENTIETH CENTURY EARTH - It must have been a great place, because they were always going there."
Security Theater [ News ]
The Crypto-Gram: August 15, 2006 edition tells the truth about the recent airline security issues - it's all security theater:
None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 -- no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews -- had anything to do with last week's arrests. And they wouldn't have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn't have made a difference, either.Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot.
Thanks Bruce. Someone needs to say this, and say it repeatedly, and hold governments and security bureaucrats to the fire for these sorts of knee-jerk responses.
I'll take half a dozen well-trained policemen and women over $10 million dollars worth of high-tech security contracts anyday.
August 16, 2006
GIMP for Windows [ Software ]
Since it takes a few clicks from the main gimp.org site to get to the current Windows downloads, here's the links to grab the latest stable version of GIMP for Windows:
GTK+-2.8.18 for Windows (needed for a new Win2K/WinXP install)
GIMP 2 Help Files (not required, but helpful to have around)
Safe search + icon editors [ Software ]
So I wanted to find a decent freeware icon editor for Windows, one that wouldn't come bundled with spyware. I had seen some links to Scandoo before, so I thought I'd try that out. Works pretty well! It acts as a front-end to Google search, flagging potentially harmful destination links with a red X and "safe" links with a green checkmark. See the results below:
It's similar to McAfee's SiteAdvisor in that regard.
You can customize what sorts of content to flag (gambling, sports, illegal activities) including unclassified content, which can be helpful for new, as-yet-uncategorized sites. Plus they've got various search and toolbar plugins for Firefox and IE, as well as the Google Toolbar.
More information:
Search with Gridwell, Scandoo, and Zeedex - from solutionwatch.com
Google Sounds Silent Alarm - from about.com
Google's Infrastructure [ Software ]
Older article (published July 6) on How Google Works from BaseLine Magazine. Interesting bits:
* Google often doesn't deploy standard business applications on standard hardware. Instead, it may use the same text parsing technology that drives its search engine to extract application input from an e-mail, rather than a conventional user interface based on data entry forms.
* "Sorry, we don't talk about our infrastructure."
Makes you wonder whether large organizations would be better served by going with the grid-model for computing and deploying their business apps on the grid, rather than the traditional spec-out-a-server-and-toss-COTS-packages-on-it approach.
August 07, 2006
Prudhoe Bay oil field shutdown [ News ]
Oil Surges Above $76 as BP Shuts Alaska Field, Largest in U.S. - Bloomberg.com
Apparently this field is responsible for about 8% of US domestic crude oil production.
Hurricane Katrina, by comparison, took about 10% of US domestic crude oil production offline. It also caused significantly greater damage to refinery capacity along the Gulf Coast, but the Prudhoe Bay shutdown may have a comparable effect on crude oil (and thus gasoline) prices.
August 04, 2006
Michael Savage's long, strange trip [ Rants ]
Since I've been carpooling with my ultra-conservative boss for the past week or so, I've had the pleasure of listening to podcasts of Michael Savage, talk radio host extraordinaire. There's, um, lots to say about Mr Savage, but this Salon article from 2003 seems most interesting:
I mean, the guy's entertaining in an angry-loud-drunk-sitting-at-the-end-of-the-bar way, but I can't imagine taking him seriously. Over the course of about 3 or 4 shows, I've heard him espouse protective tariffs for Ford and GM; launching pre-emptive attacks on "Islamo-Facists" and their countries before they strike against the United States and destroy our civilization; and rounding up all illegal immigrants to deport them south of the border. And that's not even getting into what he has to say about CNN, Fox News, the Bush administration or Nancy Pelosi.
He seems to be successful at selling the "I don't like anybody very much" persona.
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