« January 2006 | Main | March 2006 »
February 28, 2006
My New Hero
Stan Bubrouski is my new hero. He is the proud owner of null@vtext.com, which receives every badly addressed or mistyped verizon text message, including, it seems diagnostic error messages from OnStar-equipped cars.
Posted by griffjon at 06:05 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 26, 2006
The Coffee Conundrum
I realize that I'm a coffee snob, and that were I not a coffee snob, I could use a coffee maker with a timer to solve this issue. But let's take for granted, for the moment, that I'm going to use a french press, because the coffee it makes is so superior.
Another given is that I am fully addicted to coffee. I freely admit this. I need coffee to function.
The condundrum, then, is how to make french press coffee before having coffee? It requires filling the teapot (but just perfectly so that you're not wasting time heating excess water!), boiling it, grinding coffee, placing the grounds into the press, pouring boiling water into the press, positioning the filter part of the press, moving the press to the table w/o spilling, and waiting for it to steep, then pressing, then finally pouring a cup -- all before coffee!
To be more specific, this morning was a royal running disaster.
My roommate's dog Megan had pooped and pissed all over the kitchen (what happens when everyone sleeps in on weekends), and this spurred my inner type-A OCD cleaning demon, so this ended up being sweeping, bleaching and mopping of the entire kitchen floor (mainly to replace that lingering dog-shit smell with a lingering bleach smell).
Then, while grinding the coffee, our grinder died. Luckily, it was close enough to ground that it was passable.
Then, I had defrosted the night before a loaf of orange bread that Mom had baked, so as to toast and eat it this morning. We don't have a handy toaster oven, so I was doing it in the oven, using its broiler. It's... rather....hyper broiler. So I smelled them getting probably just a bit too toasted (which is how I like them, to be fair) and opened the door, and was greeted by leaping flames coming off of the poor orange bread. "luckily" someone had left the back grill unlocked, so I placed the smoldering orange bread on the ledge outside and deactivated the now-screaming smoke alarm (and the teapot was boiling all at the same time, as well).
I recovered from that point, tho -- I sliced more orange bread (and didn't burn it), and the rest of breakfast went as normal. But still -- not a great way to begin the day.
Posted by griffjon at 10:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 25, 2006
Incoherence
So, here's some blantant plugging for an awesome stereo field analyzer for your music. It's a pretty stunning way to look at music. Plugins for winamp/itunes/media player are all available for free, and there's a professional version for better details.
Posted by griffjon at 03:53 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 21, 2006
Pringles Cans on the Saudi Border
This, among some others, are re-posts from my class blog that I deem readable and not-too-deep-into-the-materials enough to mirror here
In "Weaving the Authoritarian Web: Liberalization, Bureaucratization, and the Internet in Non-Democratic Regimes," Boas, details primarily Saudi and Chinese control on the Internet. This really made me want to buy some land on the Bahrain/Saudi border and install a little headless Linux box connected to a high speed or multi-modem dialup unfiltered connection in Bahrain on one end, and a wifi cantenna rig (O'Reilly recommends Pringle's) on the other.
Actually, in for a dime, in for a dollar, might as well use the winning methodology of the most recent DefCon "security" conference's wifi shootout (the 2005 winner achieved 125 miles), or the 2003 winner, which managed over 30 miles with equipment (beyond the wifi card and laptop) under $100.
The underlying point to the Boas paper of course is that they don't have to be perfect, just good enough to make the few who can evade the restrictions politically insignificant. This will continue to be somewhat of a cat-and-mouse game, as costs for access to alternate technologies/networks will likely fall over time (e.g. satellite, cell networks from neighboring countries, mesh wifi networks that route out through foreign connections, etc.), not to mention brave souls willing to take risks, as Jake mentioned talking about the Chinese reporter who posted a "blistering letter on the newspaper's computer system attacking the Communist Party's propaganda czars and a plan by the editor in chief to dock reporters' pay if their stories upset party officials." (The plan got dropped, but the hero of the story eventually got fired and the entire section of the newspaper has since been shut down).
Regardless, these ingenious little (architectual) tools and original-sense hackers provide an invaluable resource to ICT development; the Pringle's Cantenna has already found a use for an Egyptian entrepreneur to connect his home to his Internet cafe, and I can only imagine there are other similar projects.
Creativity becomes almost as valuable as access in rolling out ICT infrastructure projects, and the same forces are at work -- laws (protecting monopolies or restricting radio frequency usage, for example), cultural norms (a mesh network requires cooperation and a method to arrange antennas to maintain a mesh and not get stolen), market (cost-to-connect, cost of equipment...), and architecture; but it is with the architecture that creativity can have the impact. The others (law, culture, market) are beyond the control in almost every development project's time-frame and budget, but the architectural challenges might be already being pursued by the "mice" of the world.
Posted by griffjon at 05:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Yahoo doesn't like Allah
From slashdot, it seems that Yahoo doesn't allow the string "allah" (among a few others) to exist in screen names (which annoys entire families named Callahan):
http://quickwired.com/kallahar/stories/2005-Yahoo//allahyahoo.php
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/02/20/yahoo_upsets_religious/
Jesus, Nazi, yahweh, Jehovah and other more offensive ones get through just fine, though.
In fact, I just signed up for nazi_paraphernalia@yahoo.fr . I love the Internet.
Posted by griffjon at 05:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 20, 2006
Inappropriate
The State Department thinks that the publication of the new Abu Ghraib photos is inappropriate:
"We felt that it was an invasion of the detainees themselves to have these photographs come out," said John Bellinger of the state department.It could also "fan the flames around the world and cause potentially further violence", he added.
Hey, OK, look here. Just because we're the U.S. doesn't mean we're right. We've been wrong before. Lots. Especially when dealing with foreign affairs. Step back and look at what you're saying, man. The photos expose and embarrass the U.S., not the prisoners -- they've already had much worse done to them (By US and possibly British troops) than anything the entire Internet working in concert could possibly ever do to them.
At some point, you have to accept that we're committing atrocious acts of humiliation and extreme physical and mental torture. We have caused 10 Iraqi civilians to die for every 1 person who died in the World Trade Center, and not even their leader had anything to do with it. We are torturing, we are holding civilians without due process of law or access to lawyers or the outside world.
We are not good guys. Accept it, and realize that the American people are ashamed of and disgusted with their leaders who are continuing to perpetrate these acts of terror.
Posted by griffjon at 08:29 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
More Ricean Sabre Rattling
Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is one of the biggest dangers facing Latin America, Washington has said.US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice said Mr Chavez was trying to influence others away from democracy, and called for a united front against him.
--BBC
I continue to have very mixed feelings about Chavez. On the one hand, he is a megalomaniac and has authoritarian leanings. On the other hand, just 'cus you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you. He's weathered one coup, and I wouldn't be surprised if his accusations towards the US had some merit, but the US certainly isn't about to say "yup, we were trying to foment revolution." Regardless, he is loved by the poor, and has implemented a lot of pro-poor policies, as well as helping their Caribbean and South American neighbors with cheap oil. Not to mention TeleSur, as a non-American news source for Latin America.
Posted by griffjon at 08:57 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Because Aid is humanitarian, not policy-driven
The Palestinian Authority has agreed to return $50m (£28.7m) of American aid following a request from Washington.The US State Department said that it did not want the money going to a Hamas-led government that refused to recognise Israel.
The US has already said that it is reviewing all aid to the Palestinians in light of Hamas' election victory.
As proof that it is serious, it has asked for $50m of aid to the Palestinian Authority to be returned.
The money was to be spent on regenerating the Palestinian economy following Israel's withdrawal from Gaza.
However, most of the $50m is still in the bank and the Palestinian Authority has agreed to return it.
President Bush has already made clear that he will not deal with Hamas, which the US lists as a terrorist group, until it renounces violence and recognises Israel.
Posted by griffjon at 08:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 17, 2006
Global Internet Freedom: Policing the local libraries
I think it's abhorrent that China is even sending uniformed patrols to local libraries to enforce what citizens can and cannot read on the often-already-filtered government-supported public terminals.
Wait. Did I say China? I meant the US.
Posted by griffjon at 08:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 15, 2006
Kensington
I have a Kensington PocketMouse Pro -- it's wireless, just barely smaller than a regular mouse, is optical, automatically goes low-power when not being used, and has a very unobtrusive USB dongle for an antenna, which stows inside the mouse itself for travel (stowing turns the mouse completely off, too).
I'm giving Kensington a big-up, because they not only designed a product that's useful to me, but they have the bestest tech support in the world. I bought my original Kensington mouse in 2002 or so, and its scroll wheel broke. I emailed tech support, and they sent a new one out, immediately. No "send us your proof of purchase", no "it's not our problem" no "it's out of warranty", no "mail us the broken one back or we charge you the full replacement cost (*cough*Dell*cough*) -- they just did it. And last week, the wheel on their replacement broke (I guess there's this one design flaw...). And guess what? I emailed them again, and they're replacing it again, no hassle.
I wish more companies liked their customers.
Posted by griffjon at 12:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Global Internet Freedom
The news about the "Global Internet Freedom Task Force" hit the blogosphere yesterday;
The State Department announced plans Tuesday to step up a campaign to combat efforts by foreign governments to restrict use of the Internet. At a news conference, Josette Shiner, a top State Department trade expert, called the Internet "the greatest purveyor of news and information in history" but said too often the flow is blocked by government censors.Shiner announced the formation of a task force that will consider, among other issues, the foreign policy aspects of Internet freedom, including the use of technology to restrict access to political content.
(...)The United States, she said, has "very serious concerns" about the protection of privacy and data throughout the Internet globally, and in particular, some of the recent cases raised in China.
Now, demonstrably, the US is not the biggest fan on "privacy," unless you're trying to keep communications private from them (which, cynically, may be the underlying issue here) with their track record of not only the pains that it took to establish EU/US Safe Harbor, but also the most recent NSA wiretaps, previous methods such as Echelon.
I'm going to chalk this up to grandstanding. I'd hope that human rights issues have a higher priority than Net access, and we've done such a good job at convincing China to address those so far.
Besides, to issue a unilateral statement like that rings false; if anything, we should push this up into the UN and work on it there (Though, I guess it might get shot down too quickly? Can you even see the US signing something like this were it proposed by the EU, for example?)
Being the good little hacker-type I am, I'm taking for granted that government censorship is bad, and information wants to be free, yadda yadda yadda. If the US wants to press something like this, I feel that they'll have to start locally, regulating Internet companies that do business in restrictive regimes (Yahoo, Google, we're looking at you guys) and make it a higher barrier to jump over, force them, for example, to make Google.cn a fully separate entity with trademark/copyright agreements or somesuch.
(Oh, but then, that might open the door to lots of really, really nasty possibilities; say, a township wants to restrict net pr0n locally, there's now legislation giving a blueprint on how to create that effect.)
I can't see how this, though a laudable goal, is at all realistic or enforceable. This has and will continue to be an important issue for China, and we don't have much leverage.
If free, unrestricted, and private communication is what the US gov't really wants to promote, maybe they should grant the EFF and a few choice F/LOSS projects like GnuPG...?
Ah, the times, they are a'changin'
Copyright, 1993. The Associated Press. All rights reserved.SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- A federal grand jury is investigating exports
of a controversial computer program in a case that could affect how
software is distributed worldwide.
U.S. Customs officials asked for an investigation into ViaCrypt of
Phoenix and Austin Code Works of Austin, Texas, and the companies' plans
for foreign distribution of software, including PGP, a program that turns
data into an indecipherable code using encryption technology.
William Keane, an assistant U.S. attorney, confirmed that an
investigation is continuing, but declined to comment on the case.
The PGP program has been distributed worldwide over computer networks
by some computer enthusiasts who oppose the U.S. government's trade
regulations on encryption.
The National Security Agency, which monitors international
communications, has supported strict encryption technology export
regulations, arguing that it would be difficult to keep tabs on hostile
governments and foreign terrorists.
But opponents say the restrictions hurt sales and violate the First
Amendment that protects the right to publish information about encryption.
"I wrote PGP to make democracy healthier. I didn't do it to make
money," said Philip Zimmermann, a computer consultant who developed PGP.
"We believe everything we are doing is above board and well within the
law," said ViaCrypt president Leonard Mikus. He said the company had no
intentions of violating export regulations.
--PGP Subpoena
Posted by griffjon at 09:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Role
The Washington Post led today with this story about the lack of an apology from Cheney:
The Republicans said Cheney should have immediately disclosed the shooting Saturday night to avoid even the suggestion of a coverup and should have offered a public apology for his role in accidentally shooting Harry Whittington, a GOP lawyer from Austin. Whittington was hospitalized Saturday night in Corpus Christi, Tex., and was moved back into the intensive-care unit after suffering an abnormal heart rhythm yesterday morning.
Excuse me, role in accidentally shooting Harry Whittington?? Was this some elaborate plot? Were those shifty little quail involved? Has the NRA been lying all these years, and guns do, in fact, kill people of their own volition? Was Loki/Coyote/Ananzi/Lucifer there pulling the trigger while Cheney's role was just holding the gun?
For chrissakes, the sentence should read "should have offered a public apology for his role in accidentally shooting Harry Whittington"
At least, I guess, they didn't talk about his role in accidentally peppering Harry? (Also, my idea of what "peppering" means does not involve having pellets getting lodged in my heart. JSA.
On that note, I would like to publically apologize for my role in not getting my policy papers written, my role in the current smell of the bathroom, my role in the unmadeness quality of my bed... and there's some other things which I think I'll hold off on for at least another 18 hours before discussing.
Posted by griffjon at 08:39 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 13, 2006
Comment Spam
I just got comment-spam (auto-tagged, thankfully) trying to advertise free monkey bestiality. WTF?
Posted by griffjon at 09:45 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Gitmo
This would make a fascinating splash ... if it ever sees the light of day in American media, that is:
Treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay constitutes torture in some cases and violates international law, a leaked UN draft report says.The document, seen by the Los Angeles Times, suggests that investigators will recommend the prison camp is shut down.
It also questions the legal status of the camp and the classification of detainees as enemy combatants.
The US State Department has criticised the draft report as "hearsay".
ThisModernWorld does a good job of summarizing the numbers game in Gitmo "protestors":
... the number of hunger strikers is now down to only four. But there’s a good reason for that. Eating is not exactly voluntary. Guards have begun strapping detainees into "restraint chairs" like the one pictured to the left, using riot-control soldiers to keep them still (no details on that), and forcing long plastic tubes down their nasal passages and into their stomachs. The tubes are inserted and removed so violently that prisoners bleed and pass out. Too much food is put in the tubes, which causes prisoners to defecate on themselves.If you’re strapped into a "padded cell on wheels," while a tube is forced down your nose, that means you’re no longer refusing meals.
All this and they can't even shoot straight.
Posted by griffjon at 07:46 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 01, 2006
OK, blogging is dead
Each bird will carry a GPS satellite tracking receiver, air pollution sensors and a basic mobile phone.Text messages on air quality will be beamed back in real time to a special pigeon "blog," a journal accessible on the Internet.
(see on Slashdot)
Posted by griffjon at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack