- WordPress 2.5 » Major update to WordPress. Dashboard completely redone and widgetized. Uploads and posting revamped. Plugins automatically update. Galleries, media integration, and more.
- Bar da Boa » put first name in top box, last name in second box… click Visualizar
- Being Funny » Steve Martin
- Big Bellies Linked to Alzheimer’s Disease »
- The Once and Future Austin » I do this, I lament places I have loved in the past that have long since closed. Les Amis was definitely one of those. add it to the Basil’s, Chez Fred, Spaghetti Western, Liberty Lunch,etc… list of things that can never be replaced in this town.
Archive for March, 2008
extrinsic
Mar 31
Voice captured before Edison
Mar 30
Researchers find a French recording made in 1860 of a piece of the song “Au Clair de la Lune”. It was made utlizing a machine called a phonautograph, which scribbles audio waves onto a paper covered with soot, a phonautogram. The man that made the phonautograph, and recorded the song fragment, was Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville. This discovery pre-dates the previous recording thought to be the first, which was by Thomas Edison 28 years later.
The phoneautograph and its maker had no way of playing back the sounds at the time. But the American researchers that found the recordings converted them to a digital audio recording.
Creative makes sound cards. Sure they make alot of other things now, but they built their business on sound cards. They succeeded a thrived in the very early PC market to make soundout of PCs better and better. This is where the good part ends.
There are many constants in PC hardware, and one of those is that Creative drivers suck. I mean, there are other companies known to have substandard drivers or to not make very frequent updates. But I bet if there was a poll of the ones most well known for this, Creative would clearly be at the top. Another bad thing Creative is known for is misleading advertising and product specifications. By misleading I mean total untruths. No matter how many times their shady product details are revealed for the truth they are by many respected hardware reviewers, they still seem to one-up themselves.
I won’t be going into the whole history of this, because frankly it just requires a few words in Google like “creative misleading” or “creative shady” or something similar, and you will get more than you will ever want to read. And you know what you won’t find? You won’t find one Creative representative denying any of it.
But, this article is about some current topics.
First: Creative has a second-wave of X-Fi sound cards. These sound cards are different from the previous few X-Fi sound cards in one important way: They don’t have an X-Fi chip in them at all!
Second: Creative doesn’t want your old non-X-Fi card to work in Windows Vista. Y’see, Creative hardware of past generations work fine in Vista. There is absolutely nothing hardware oriented keeping them from working, and working well. But Creative won’t make drivers for them. Not only that, but when a intrepid user modified the drivers for the Audigy card he owned, Creative handed him the Cease and Desist rigamarole. (Because that link is straight to the Creative forums, and possibly could be modified or removed at any time, I include the post in it’s entirety after the break.)
Tron via cardboard
Mar 28
Mac hacked in two minutes
Mar 28
Apple fanatics have one less tic mark to their list of all that is good.
Linux fanbois can continue their chest pumping, however.
Apple users tend to be a fanatical lot, often expressing their choice in pre-fabricated computing platforms as if it were a religious experience. There is no sense running down comparisons or arguing any points, it’d be just like arguing religion or politics. This is really odd considering it is just an electronic device. Even if it comes in a pure white candy shell.
One of the common things to hear supporting the halo around Apple is that “Macs don’t have viruses”. Apple even proclaims it in one of their Mac vs. PC ads, and on their website. Of course, this is false, but don’t try explaining that. They also state that because they use a Unix base for Mac OS X, that there are little to no vulnerabilities.
But Thursday, in an international security conference called CanSecWest in Canada, there was a little hacking competition waged. The “PWN 2 OWN” competition featured a $10000 grand prize to hack into a laptop and steal a file. First one wins. Charlie Miller did it in 2 minutes.
The machine was running the latest Mac OS X version with all security patches. Due to agreements at the conference, the way he hacked it will not be revealed until after Apple has been fully notified of the breach. But the contest had stipulations that the contestant could only use software pre-installed on the system. So, the likely vulnerability was Apple’s Safari web browser.
The thing is, he could have gone after any OS, as the three laptops offered for exploiting were one each of the Mac OS X, Windows Vista, and Ubuntu Linux varieties. Why did Miller choose to target the Mac? Because it was the easiest.
A Sonic game with fast
Mar 24
New footage (below) leaked from Sega’s own ftp site shows the recently announced Sonic Unleashed game in action. There is still very little known about this game other than:
- it has a generous budget and development team
- it will most likely come out on the Wii and XBOX360
- it’s release date is in November, 2008
- there will be a new character introduced
There is also an unconfirmed rumor that you will be able to play as a werewolf form of Sonic (which would explain the screenshot).
More screenshots, including hi-res, and info here.
extrinsic
Mar 24
- Ads of the World »
- Smokenator 1000 » conversion kit for a weber grill into a smoker
- Windows XP on ASUS EEE PC without a CD Drive »
- First-Person Shooter Turns Political » artist Wafaa Bilal is forcing people to confront the boundaries between wars and games, with one art installation that allows people to shoot paintballs at him via the Internet
- zoho.com » Zoho has all online versions of office, calendars, planners, notebooks, mail, meetings, wiki and many more. Very google-esque, but so far I’ve found these more feature rich but just as easy to use as Google apps.
- Engineers Develop Solid-state Fan That Puts Traditional Coolers to Shame »
- Boing Boing »
- All in the Wrist » Competitive FPS gaming, practice techniques
- Arthur C. Clarke, 90, Science Fiction Writer, Dies »
- DadHacker »
- Donkey Kong and Me » Nostalgic journal of a Donkey Kong programmer
- The World’s Most Dangerous Geek » Justin Frankel, the man who popularized file-sharing, has even bigger plans
- Down for everyone or just me? »
- How a German wartime flying ace discovered he shot down his hero » Messerschmidt pilot Horst Rippert, 88, said he would have held his fire if he had known the man flying the Lightning fighter was renowned French novelist Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
Everyone Kills Hitler First
Mar 20
A little fictional Wiki-esque discussion page of a time travelers group:
11/15/2104
At 14:52:28, FreedomFighter69 wrote:
Reporting my first temporal excursion since joining IATT: have just returned from 1936 Berlin, having taken the place of one of Leni Riefenstahl’s cameramen and assassinated Adolf Hitler during the opening of the Olympic Games. Let a free world rejoice!
Arthur C. Clarke: 1917-2008
Mar 19
One of the fathers of science fiction has passed away. He was one of the very few science fiction authors to have actually written about things that eventually came into existence, surprisingly within his lifetime. After all, he was also a scientist, himself. The most notable of these is probably geostationary orbiting satellites. Perhaps more Clarke futurisms will come true in the years to come.
2001 is a film remembered by all, whether you are a science fiction fan or not. Clarke somehow outlived Kubrick, but the masterpiece of those two minds collaborating is one of the greatest movies ever made. But, everyone should definitely read the book, as there is so much more crammed in those pages… stuff that makes one gasp at the possibilities of our own creativity as men. Like the movie, Clarke’s stories, while possessing fantastic creations of science and physics, were more about how man evolves alongside technology and scientific discovery, and how society and morality adapts to the future.
If we have learned one thing from the history of invention and discovery, it is that, in the long run — and often in the short one — the most daring prophecies seem laughably conservative.
extrinsic
Mar 17
- Phone Power » Voip service
- Chemical brain controls nanobots »
- VoipYourLife » VOIP phone service that gets pretty consistent good reviews
- Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts »
- Stinas resa: Uganda » blog of the Claptree in Africa
- Coupon codes and discounts for 10,000 online stores! RetailMeNot.com »
- AI researchers think ‘Rascals’ can pass Turing test »
- Cyberathlete Professional League » The CPL Ceases Operations »
- If Celebs Moved to Oklahoma »
- Stuff White People Like »
- iSerenity » Background noise
- Momondo » Aggregate travel search site… searches all the travel sites
- hulu » Watch your favorites. Anytime. For free.
- NitroTracker » A Fasttracker II style tracker for the Nintendo DS.
- On ‘Completion Anxiety Disorder’ » Why gamers don’t finish games
- Drugs in water causing troubling problems to fish, wildlife – CNN.com » Pharmaceuticals in the water are being blamed for severe reproductive problems in many types of fish. There are problems with other wildlife as well: kidney failure in vultures, impaired reproduction in mussels, inhibited growth in algae.
- Frozen remains of WWII airman identified »
After more than 10 years, the first major venture to turn gaming into a profession has shut its doors.
Effective immediately, the Cyberathlete Professional League (CPL) will cease operations. Therefore, all CPL events currently scheduled for 2008 are hereby canceled.
The CPL was launched in June 1997 with the pioneering mission of promoting and sanctioning video game competitions as a professional sport. For ten years the CPL events experienced increased growth – commencing with a small LAN event in Dallas, Texas, and culminating in world-class competitions across five continents.
However, the current fragmentation of the sport, a crowded field of competing leagues, and the current economic climate have prompted the CPL to suspend its pro-tournament operations. The CPL regrets that this news will disappoint those that were planning on attending the summer and winter events this year.
Many thanks to all of the sponsors and partners that helped CPL establish the groundwork for professional video game competitions. Their vision and pioneering spirit should always be remembered.
Counter-strike existed and thrived before the CPL, and I played CS competitively before it, as well. But CPL brought CS competition into the spotlight. While never really getting enough press and fans beyond other CS players and game sites, the CPL did generate a worldwide buzz that carried over into other games. They also helped establish a rulebase and a legitimacy for it being almost a sport. I only competed in CPL events in it’s first couple years, but I remember them fondly. It’s sad to see this phase of gaming die.
extrinsic
Mar 10
- How to Communicate Your Weaknesses »
- Free Shipping: Find Free Shipping on Amazon, eBay & 500+ stores »
- AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water » A vast array of pharmaceuticals _ including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones _ have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.
- Decorate Your Easter Eggs in Mathematica »
- Training Your Brain To Ignore Tinnitus »
- Unclutterer » Daily tips on how to organize your home and office.
- Personal Nuclear Reactors »
- Nanoparticles could make hydrogen cheaper than gasoline »
- Watch the Sky with your Nintendo DS »
- WinSCP :: Free SFTP and FTP client for Windows »
- Bitter Vetch or the Heath Pea for losing weight » a traditional herb used by King Charles II to help his mistresses lose weight could be used in the modern day battle against obesity.
- US Government Concedes Vaccine Caused Autism » Government health officials have conceded that childhood vaccines worsened a rare, underlying disorder that ultimately led to autism-like symptoms in a Georgia girl, and that she should be paid from a federal vaccine-injury fund.
- Jenny Mccarthy urges doctors to accept that diet can ease autism »
- Gary Gygax, ‘Father of D&D,’ Dies at 69 » Wow, this one hits me right in my nerd heart. RIP, father of modern roleplaying.
- Whisky Guild »
- Bacon Vodka »
- ASUS Shows Off 8.9" Eee PC 900 »
- BarCampAustinIII » BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences â open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants â often focusing on early-stage web applications, and related open source technologies, social protocols
- Girls Rock Camp Austin » Campers learn to play instruments of their choosing (guitars, drums, bass, keyboards, or vocals), form bands, write songs and perform live at a showcase at the end of the camp. They also attend workshops on women who rock, self-defense, images of girls an
- Magneto Man » Boy makes computers go haywire. (or switch to Wingdings font?) I bet he’s just screwing with the Word settings when the teacher turns her back.
Gary Gygax 1938-2008
Mar 4
The father of roleplaying has left the building. I spent much of my formative years with the games he designed, and I thank him. And for you youngins, every roleplaying based computer game stemmed from this guy.
I just read a long, but very to-the-point, thread by Michael Fitch on the Quarter to Three forums. The latest blow in a seeming barrage against the state of PC gaming. Michael is the Director of Creative Management at THQ, the publisher for Iron Lore Entertainment’s PC game: Titan Quest. ILE, just last week, closed operations for good. Even after releasing a fairly critically acclaimed game. Although, a publisher would probably rarely shoulder the blame of a studio failing, he makes some points on the state of PC Gaming and why good games and good developers have a hard time succeeding on the platform.
He brings up many of the same points as have been addressed before, and that have been brought to the forefront especially in the last few months. Number one complaint from developers, publishers, and industry gurus?
Piracy. Yeah, that’s right, I said it. No, I don’t want to re-hash the endless “piracy spreads awareness”, “I only pirate because there’s no demo”, “people who pirate wouldn’t buy the game anyway” round-robin. Been there, done that.
This follows several other smacks upside the PC head:
- a report stating that PC gaming piracy could represent up to 90% of people playing the games.
- An interview with Chris Taylor, where he states the “old model” of PC gaming is dead, and that a new secure gaming model is needed for the future of the platform.
- CliffyB’s statement to MTV that PC gaming will become secondary to Epic games… a gaming company founded on PC games.
- Infinity Ward’s blog confessing their amazment at the amount of pirated versions they detected when gathering online player stats.
This is a disturbing trend. No, not the piracy, but the disheartening comments from PC game makers. Piracy on the platform is not a new concern by any means. I remember well the early days of PC gaming. Before most PC’s had hard drives, and we were lucky to play in 4 colors (CGA). Yes, I remember having to turn to page 34 in the game manual to type in the 13th word on the 27th line before I could continue on with my grand quest to kill the odd magenta sprites with my blue 3-pixel-long sword. I also recall going to PC user groups long before a public internet existed, where we traded BBS phone numbers, and people would sell dozens of game disks. Game disks were all the pirated versions of current games they could fit on one 5 1/4″ floppy. We’d visit those BBS’s and there we would log on and play our turns on a usually pirated version of Tradewars 2002. No, that wasn’t in the year 2002, it was just named that. It was in the late 80′s. And it wouldn’t be the users pirating, it would be the BBS owner. And finally I remember the “dark books”. The keyed books that were of a construction paper color so dark as to thwart people photocopying the thing. I’m pretty sure I owe my aging vision problems to the brown Keef the Thief dark book.
(I really love to show my age for some reason.)
Based purely on my “feel” of the past and current age of PC games, I thought piracy had improved. Honestly piracy was almost the accepted norm back then. I remember walking home with my $50 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the galaxy text based adventure. I had been saving for it, and bought it right when I saw it in the store. I come to find out that I may have been the only person I know that actually bought that game, and yet everyone had played it. The state of piracy, if anything, seems to have either stayed the same or slightly improved. And yet, PC gaming was still years from its golden years of Quake and Halflife… so how did upstarts like Id and Valve survive and thrive in such a hostile PC gaming market?
Just as I seek to delve headfirst into the gaming industry, with my goal of making PC games the rest of my life, now is the time I need more reassurance that the bottom will not fall out. Sure, I will always be there slogging away with my mouse and keyboard, but who will be with me?
There are a few rays of light. Shortly after CliffyB’s proclamation against PC development, he and his company became one of the founding members of the PC Gaming Alliance, along with Microsoft, Dell, AMD, Activision, Intel, Nvidia, Razer, Acer. This group vows to invigorate and revolutionize PC gaming, instead of allowing it fold into the chasm of consoles. In addition, the biggest game publisher, Electronic Arts, is testing the waters with a type of game immune to piracy: the free game. No one is more surprised than this former EA employee!
Besides, it’s not as if console games don’t have their own piracy problems.
extrinsic
Mar 3
- Rejected! A long, long time ago » Star Wars toys that didn’t quite make the cut
- Game Preservation »
- IGDA – International Game Developers Association »
- Passage » a game about life, in 8 bits
- Livemocha » Learn Languages and Practice with Native Speakers
- BookletCreator » is a free online tool that allows to create a booklet from a PDF document. It reorders pages so that after printing and folding the pages you get a small book.
- PocketMod: The Free Recyclable Personal Organizer »
- Flash Player Setup Wizard »
- Airborne Bacteria Make It Rain » The sky is not an ethereal, sterile realm. It’s teeming with bacteria, and scientists say that the microbes play a powerful role in producing rain and snow.
- Ranger – the 504 Teraflop University of Texas supercomputer »
- Road Runner Network Status »
- XBMC » Xbox Media Center
- Urban Austin » wiki devoted to the urban development of Austin, Texas
- Learnit lists » Learn a language with a few words a day
- Eee PC Research » Hardware layout and breakdown of the Asus EeePC.
- Austin Lunch Restaurant Reviews and Photos »
- A “Reset Button” for the Brain Could Cure Alzheimers »
- Why Starbucks actually helps mom and pop coffeehouses »
- SCIgen – An Automatic CS Paper Generator » SCIgen is a program that generates random Computer Science research papers, including graphs, figures, and citations. It uses a hand-written context-free grammar to form all elements of the papers.
- The answer to the toughest interview question » The right answer to the question, What’s your salary range? is almost always some version of I’m not telling you.
- Samsung defends flash reliability in solid-state drives » This should put many eeepc user’s minds at ease.
- 800Notes.com » User submitted database of mysterious numbers that may call you.
- Botanicalls Twitter DIY » Botanicalls Twitter answers the question: What’s up with your plant? It offers a connection to your leafy pal via online Twitter status updates that reach you anywhere in the world. When your plant needs water, it will post to let you know, and send its t
- Portal Turret papercraft » by *billybob884 on deviantART
- Cisco ATA 186 Brute Force Crack Hack »
- HowTo configure Cisco ATA-188/186 with sipX »
- Cisco ATA 186 password retrieval »
- Microsoft DreamSpark » Microsoft giving away versions of Visual studio, XNA, and other software to students
- U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft » Having eliminated all terrorism in the real world, the U.S. intelligence community is working to develop software that will detect violent extremists infiltrating World of Warcraft and other massive multiplayer games, according to a data-mining report fro
- Phun » A fun 2D physics sandbox by Emil Ernerfeldt
