TRON Geek Gathering

Did the creators of the Gregorian Calendar have the wisdom to set things in motion so that the June 2007 Geek Gathering would come as early in the month as possible? That's some foresight, considering that its champion, Calabrian doctor Aloysius Lilius, got the nod from Pope Gregory XIII to put it in motion on February 24th in 1582.

Another forecast for tonight? Say around 9:00 PM? 78 F and clear skies.

Which works out well for us, as we will be screening TRON at this month's Geek Gathering on the big back wall of the Petrol Station (985 Wakefield) at 9:00 tonight. The preliminaries will kick off a little after 7:00 with Jay Lee and the crew of 90.1's Technology Bytes. St. Arnold will be on hand, though this is definitely an all ages venue.

Yes, that is Jay Maynard, aka the Tron Guy. He said that he would join us if he hadn't already made a promise to be in Sioux Falls, SD. Next time...

I'll leave you with the following TRON facts to tide you over until the Day Star goes down on the Big Blue Room.

*Peter O'Toole was originally signed to play Dillenger/Sark, but backed out of it when he didn't see any of the scenery, light cycles or tanks that were mentioned in the film's script.

*Because of a glitch in the production and emulsion ordering, flashes appear randomly throughout the film. The film crew covered this up by adding sound effects to coincide with these unexpected flashes, making them part of the computer world. This technique was later borrowed by Bill Gates to turn "bugs" into "features" in the world of windows. WoW!

*Jeff Bridges was fitted with a dance belt for the filming of TRON because of a certain bulge is his costume.

*While many people mistakenly believe that TRON's name was derived from elecTRONic, it is actually a reference to the BASIC debugging tool, which stands for Trace On. TROFF, Trace Off, disables the tool.

*TRON was passed over for an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects because the Academy felt that the film makers *cheated* by using computers. In fact, a number of Disney animators refused to work on the project because they feared that CG animation would mean the death of hand-drawn animation. They we correct, though Disney didn't close the doors on its hand-drawn animation studios for another 22 years.

*E.T. the Extra Terrestrial claimed the award for Best Visual Effects that year (1982) with Cocoon taking it in 1985, Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988 (due to it's blending of traditional animation and live action) and The Abyss in 1989 for its use of that same cheaty *CG Animation*.

*The cast of Cocoon was made entirely of teenage actors, shedding some light on it's award for Best Visual Effects.

*The Petrol Station is the downtown expat sibling of the old Kaveh Kanes, ground zero for Houston's wireless movement.

*See you all tonight!!1!1

DRM doomed?

If you've ever occupied space (IRL or in the digital realm) near me when the issue of Digital Rights Management has come up, you know my stance on it. Jeremy Allison, a rather well-known Google employee, shares my beliefs, though, unlike me, has found time to write a great piece outlining a simple case for why DRM is doomed from the beginning. I especially like the references to Scotty and the Underpants Gnomes. Check out what he has to say here.

Obama's space

Techpresident.com is running a piece that outlines the battle between the Obama Presidential Campaign and the creator of the Obama MySpace page, Joseph Anthony, who had built up Obama's MySpace presence to include over 160,000 unsolicited friends. Today, the site has just over 18,000 friends and has been placed back in the hands of the Obama campaign.
What this really boils down to is a stand off between voter-generated media and campaign controlled content. Micah L. Sifry states, "The most intriguing thing about this whole mess is this is the first time I can think of where the grass-roots activist at the bottom of the pile has a megaphone as big as the folks who tried to boss him around."

Are you game?

When video game cabinets first came on the scene, digital storage was expensive and music was analog. Think vinyl records and mix tapes... The Compact Disc was still nearly a decade away, and the only way to get "high fidelity" sound into a game was to throw a cassette tape player into the mix. Seriously.
A much more practical (lo-fi) way of getting music into a game was to include a computer chip that could take electrical signals from the processor and convert them into an audible waveform via a built-in speaker; the first music to hit the gaming scene was predictably monophonic and heavily looped. Even worse, most of the engineers responsible for coding music into games had no musical experience what so ever.
It wasn't until the birth of home console games that this new breed of digital composers found an audience. Upon completion of a game, names like Koji Kondo (Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda) and Hirokazu Tanaka (Metroid and Kid Icarus) would scroll by, alerting us that video game music was on its way to becoming an art in and of itself.
Twenty years later, the video game industry is booming, requiring voice actors, live motion actors, the most gifted coders in the world, and...musicians. While some of us harbor unbreakable ties to the 8-bit music of the games in the 80s, there is no denying that the new breed of VG composers is fierce. Armed with everything from traditional studio instruments to the latest in digital re-sequencers, many of these new artists have their own following. This is especially true in Japan where makers ship both the games and their sound tracks. Hollywood caught onto this decades ago, generating quite a few MPAA/RIAA dollars in the process of selling the "Original Sound Track" on CD and cassette in addition to the movie itself. The US video game industry is just now wising up.
So what does this mean in terms of your Friday night? Tom Holkenborg (aka Junkie XL or just JXL on many video game credits) is a musician who has contributed some pretty high profile work to both console and pc games during the last five years. Geek Street Cred: Junkie XL produced the theme music for the computer game The Sims 2: Nightlife, and the entire soundtrack for the Xbox racing game Forza Motorsport. Most recently, JXL laid down the entire SSX Blur original sound track, Blur being the newest snowboarding title for the Nintentdo Wii.
Pushing the industry forward from the sampler up, Junkie recently became the first artist to sign a record deal with Artwerk, the new label started up by video game publishing giant Electronic Arts. And starting in September of this year, he'll be heading back to his home country of The Netherlands to teach a Music Technology course at the ArtEZ Conservatorium.
JXL will be in Houston tonight at Planeta Bar Rio (6400 Richmond), doing a live set of whatever he feels like putting out there. I will be attending after the Geek Gathering, as will my Cylon girlfriend, Amanda Robinson. She'll actually be getting things started with a live dj set at 10:00 and another at 11:30. And about that Geek Gathering... I'll be at Tropioca Tea and Coffee in Midtown Houston tonight from 7:30 - 9:30 to hang out with the other co-hosts and fans of Technology Bytes at the May 2007 Geek Gathering. Bubble tea, free WiFi, and 80's arcade banter. Are you game?

Leeroy Jenkins!!!

The scene: World of Warcraft, Laughing Skull Server, Upper Blackrock Spire Dungeon, the Rookery Room. You and a dozen clan mates have assembled outside one of the most notoriously difficult areas for players new to WoW. As your leader carefully reviews the strategy, Leeroy returns from being away from the keyboard and...

(This video contains a word or two that is inappropriate for office workers and younger viewers! You've been warned!)

While this is somewhat of an old story, Joel Warner of Westworld recently tracked down Leeroy for a new look into an old meme.

BTW, all of the World of Warcraft servers are down this morning for maintenance. Maybe this can get you through until they are back online around 1:00 PM today...

The bunny and I

Some 22 years ago (I now find it more aesthetic to represent my current age in hexadecimal), Robert Metcalfe drafted a memo to his manager describing what is now known as Ethernet. In his own words, "On May 22, 1973, using my Selectric typewriter ... I wrote ... "Ether Acquisition" ... heavy with handwritten annotations -- one of which was 'ETHER!' -- and with hand-drawn diagrams -- one of which showed `boosters´ interconnecting branched cable, telephone, and ratio ethers in what we now call an internet.... If Ethernet was invented in any one memo, by any one person, or on any one day, this was it."
It being my birthday, I'm going to give myself a hall pass on a lengthy explanation of what Ethernet is and why it is important to anyone with a computer connected to the Internet. Let me, instead, leave you with this much more enlightened explanation of Ethernet: it is what one uses to catch the etherbunny.

Early April news

For a number of years now, the likes of Google, Slashdot and ThinkGeek have fed users new products and rolled out ground-breaking services, all of which are announced on day one of the second quarter. If you weren't out surfing the sites Sunday, you might have missed some of them. Never fear, as I have taken it upon myself to compile a short list of some of my favorite products and services for Q2 2007.
For the coders out there, a rapid development framework for Python which uses commonly known design patterns like ActiveRecord, Association Data Mapping, Front Controller and MVC was released Sunday. Check out the PythonOnPlanes 1.3.07 release notes for more information.
I'm bad about leaving the loft without my phone. I generally won't realize I have forgotten it until I am about to leave my parking garage, which means a trek back through the underground garage, up the elevator, down the hallway, into the loft, and back again. I'm also bad about going to the dentist as often as I should. AT&T/BellSouth/Cingular could change all of this, though, with a new technology that would allow dentists to implant a cellphone device into a user's molars. Howstuffworks has a good description of the technology, stating that, "once implanted in a person's molar, the transducer caused the tooth to vibrate in response to radio signals. The physical structure of the jaw carried the tooth's vibrations to the inner ear, where the user, and no one else, could perceive them as sound." Hopefully they'll have this rolled out in time for my next cleaning...
Google is at it again, this time with the launch of Google TiSP, a free in-home wireless broadband service that delivers online connectivity via users' plumbing systems. This project is years ahead of the City's recently announced proposal with Earthlink. It will be interesting to see if the aptly nicknamed "Dark porcelain" project will stay afloat amid Google's other projects and purchases.
While not necessarily a product or service, this next piece of news still merits a mention. We've already heard that actress Gillian Anderson has announced that she will not be returning in the long-awaited sequel to Chris Carter's The X-Files: Fight the Future. In her stead, actress Julianne Moore will be portraying Special Agent Dana Scully.
And finally, ThinkGeek is offering a special accessory for the Nintendo Wii. For gamers who can't quite muster the physical strength demanded of them by the Wiimote, the WiiHelm could be a much needed blessing. After all, who wants to spend hours at the gym just to play a videogame?!?! I think that the demo says it all...

Holy war

Holy Wars are fought for principals and beliefs loftier than the concepts of tolerance and co-existance. In a Holy War, both camps are so entrenched in their own ideology that logic and reason go right out the window. Examples include one of the three "sacred wars" waged over the possession of the oracle of Apollo at Delphi, the Christian Crusades and the longstanding war between the users of vi and emacs.
You may have already been a participant in a holy war (possibly unwittingly!) at some point in your geek life, as the Internet has proven to be a fast paced battleground where anyone with a dial-up connection is issued a weapon along with their access number. In fact, wars have been raging on the Internet for years: the aforementioned emacs vs. vi editor war, AOLers vs. Netiquette, Linus Torvalds vs. Richard Stallman, Red vs. Blue, and Mac users vs. the the poor, unwashed, Microsoft masses.
It's in a geek's nature to argue certain points to death.
Mainly because we know we're right.
But what happens when we are confronted with matters of faith rather than fact? M4th.com is running a piece that addresses the question of why geeks are often athiests. The article's "given" is taken from a recent Digg poll on religion. The piece may raise more questions than it answers, but is littered with hidden gems.
"The quickest and most reliable way to be rewarded for intelligence is to prove someone else wrong (critical thinking). Such a strategy gives you an immediate result and also establishes a sense of superior intelligence. Being constructive is much less rewarding."
I think that the author just summed up the reason why so many Holy Wars devolve into Flame Wars, though that is a topic best saved for a later post.

April Geek Gathering

The April 2007 Geek Gathering is taking place this Friday, April 6th, at Tropioca Tea and Coffee in Midtown Houston. Located at 2808 Milam at Drew, Tropioca serves bubble tea, coffee, and smoothies in addition to pizza and sandwiches. The entire area is showered in 2.4GHz Goodness, so bring your WiFi enabled devices if you are so inclined. A few AC power outlets are available and someone will usually run out to their car for a power strip if one is needed.
If you've got a computer problem that requires some hands on attention or if you just want to come and chat with the hosts and listeners of Technology Bytes, start your Friday night right with some geeky banter and a bubble tea.

LED luminary

Stop. Right now. Breathe. Now look around you and count the number of Light-Emitting Diodes (or LEDs) that you can currently see. There is generally a direct correlation between the number of LEDs you have around you and your Geek Quotient. (Depending on your current location, this could be an inaccurate measure of your true geekiness. I'll trust that you will adjust your sense of self worth accordingly.)
"Like a normal diode, an LED consists of a chip of semi-conducting material impregnated, or doped, with impurities to create a p-n junction. As in other diodes, current flows easily from the p-side, or anode, to the n-side, or cathode, but not in the reverse direction. Charge-carriers -- electrons and electron holes -- flow into the junction from electrodes with different voltages. When an electron meets a hole, it falls into a lower energy level, and releases energy in the form of a photon."
Coolness.
LEDs, a long-time staple in many a piece of tech gear, have been creeping into mainstream usage for years now. Whether newly found on your keychain or in the tail lights of your car, these heatless light sources have been with us for the better part of 50 years. Or so we thought.
New Scientist is running an article that sheds some light on a Russian radio technician named Oleg Vladimirovich Losev. It appears that Losev invented the LED some thirty years earlier than previously thought. Rather than regurgitate the small amount of information that has been found about Losev and his early invention, I would encourage you to read the paper by Nikolay Zheludev, the professor who brought Losev's work to light. I must warn you, however, that this part of the story is not a happy one; Losev died of hunger in 1942, during the blockade of Leningrad, at the age of 39. His legacy, though, can be found in every blink of a router or switch and in the hearts and minds of those individuals who endeavor to illuminate the world around us.

So it goes

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center."
Kurt Vonnegut, 1922 - 2007

Death and taxes

Death and taxes certainly went hand in hand last night for the unlucky few watching over Intuit's TurboTax server farm. Due to the large number of last minute filers, the servers started to melt down several hours before the midnight filing deadline. From the TurboTax support page earlier this morning:
"Update, 6:30am, April 18: Outstanding issues with our servers have been resolved and we are currently processing all customers' returns and requests for status checks at a normal rate. As we mentioned earlier, we are working with the IRS this morning to ensure that returns will be considered as timely filed even if transmitted to us past midnight.
We encourage customers to continue trying to e-file; if you have been unable to successfully transmit, please try again."
I, myself, took mine to the downtown post office in the rain and at a very late hour.
Rushmore>
Max: How'd the math test go?Dirk: What math test?Max: I thought you had a math test today.Dirk: No. Did you turn in your paper on the Berlin Airlift ?Max: Yeah, I got an extension.
Rushmore>
And so did I.

A touching effort

Gabe: Have you heard about this Japanese witch toucher game? Tycho: It's the one where you touch witches, right? Gabe: That's it. Gabe: I guess you gotta touch them with the stylus until their heart races. That's what I heard. Tycho: So if they get excited, does it mean they're a witch? Or does it imply an absence of witchery. Gabe: Who _ _ cares?
Yes, that's correct. A new game called Doki Doki Majo Saiban may soon be released for the Nintendo DS. From the kotaku.com site:
"Plot elements for SNK's witch-toucher Doki Doki Majo Saiban have surfaced over at Famitsu. The game stars naughty Akuji Nishimura, who is commanded by an Angel Lulu to search for [witches] lurking in his junior high school. When the search is narrowed down, the suspected junior high school witch is examined with the touch pen.
How do you know if the little girl is a witch? Usually, there's a "witch's crest" hidden somewhere on her body which can appear in "Witch Check Mode." The goal: Make her heart beat quickly. Players use the stylus to touch the girl, whose expression will change depending on how her heart beats. The background with change as well. However! Rush things, and the girl does not respond. Players must take it slow with the touching -- these witches are flowers, or something."
Odd fare for Nintendo, but not really that odd for Japan in general. Whether your weirded out by this or think that it's kinda cool, one thing is certain. A new gaming genre has been born: "touch-a-girl-to-see-if-she's-a-witch". Game on.

Free as in WiFi

Up until very recently (today, in fact), most of the cable based ISPs were decidedly against their subscribers sharing their connection to the Internet via WiFi. Some ISPs like Verizon Communications Inc can actually terminate your contract if they find you hosting an ad-hoc hotspot. This creates a situation where geeks-on-the-go have to pay for broadband once at home and then again in the coffee shop.
Of course, there are several free options available, thanks in part to groups like HoustonWireless.org and the desire of shop owners to increase foot traffic as well as entice their patrons to stick around for another drink or snack. The situation becomes grim, though, as soon as you enter a public place where "they" know they "have you." In these circumstances, broadband access can go from free to tens of dollars per day; airports and large commercial coffee chains tend to be the biggest offenders.
I did not expect that it would be Time Warner Cable Inc. to break with the industry's current stance that sharing home connections via WiFi is a Bad Thing. Business week is reporting that Time Warner "will let its home broadband customers turn their connections into public wireless hotspots, a practice shunned by most U.S. Internet service providers" with the help from a Spanish WiFi startup called Fon.
Is this a lone shot in the dark or just the first in a volley that may end with subscribers gaining ground on the mobility front across all ISPs?

Geek mascots

Below are some popular "tech mascots" as selected by Wired Magazine. Actually, Wired calls them the Lamest Technology Mascots Ever. While still one rung up from Lamest Technology Mascots 3V4R!, that's a pretty low disctinction to attach to some of these charismatic yet misunderstood mascots.

Here's your preview... Do you recognize any of them? Do you harbor any fear or fondness for any one in particular?

Take some guesses. Do some digging. I'll be back in a few days to give you their names, the products they are associated with, and maybe even some history. In the mean time, tune into KPFT 90.1 FM tonight to check out Technology Bytes tonight at 8:00 PM.

Mascots unmasked

Here's your complete answer key to yesterday's tech mascot roundup. Though Wired calls them the Lamest Technology Mascots Ever, I have developed a certain fondness for one or two of them...

	Name: Tux Represents: Linux Wired Says: Inescapable. I Say: I've got a three foot tall plastic penguin in my window overlooking Main Street in downtown and a myriad of other penguins littering my server room. Wired says that's lame? I say that's a shame.
	Name: Clippy Represents: Microsoft Office Wired Says: Probably tested well in research. I Say: I love to hate Clippy. He's a geek culture icon that most everyone can agree is at least slightly annoying. He also had a fairly long run as a guest character in User Friendly.
	Name: Wikipede Represents: Wikipedia Wired Says: Go with the centipede -- he's a tenured professor of religion! I Say: He's a natural multi-tasker and he's in the know about yerba mate. That scores big points with me.
	Name: The VM Bear Represents: IBM's VM Operating System Wired Says: Harmless. I Say: A far cry from the eight blue lines that make up IBM's logo, the VM Bear might have inspired warm and fuzzy feelings in many an IBM sysadmins' shifts. After all, who isn't comforted by a green, glowing teddy in the middle of the night?
	Name: Hexley Represents: The Darwin OS Wired Says: Weird but lovable. I Say: Platypus are people, too. Well, kinda...
	Name: Mozilla Represents: The Mozilla Browser Wired Says: Ugh! Zog like tabbed browsing! I Say: Originally intended to be a Mosaic browser killer (Mo*saic vs. Mo*zilla - get it?), Mozilla now fronts for the Mozilla Foundation. It's good work if you can get it.
	Name: Clarus Represents: Apple Wired Says: Isn't Clarums just the cutest widdle fellow? Yes he is! I Say: I've already weighed in on Clarus, the DogCow.
	Name: The BSA Ferret Represents: The Business Software Alliance Wired Says: A contest to name him attracted no apparent takers. Or maybe "Gestapo" was the winning name. I Say: A mascot that encouraged kids to rat out their software pirating parents? It's not just lame, it's evil!
	Name: Jeeves Represents: Ask.com Wired Says: Very good, sir. Will that be all? I Say: I never used ask.com very much; Then again, I never really enjoyed phrasing answers in the form of a question.
	Name: Glenda Represents: The Plan 9 Operating System Wired Says: Happy, fuzzy petaflop bunny! I Say: Every geek should be able to give a knowing nod at the mention of Plan 9...
	Name: The Jester Represents: Adobe Creative Suite Wired Says: Just when we were growing out of our recurring clown nightmare, too. I Say: Yeah, this one creeps me out, too. Coulrophobia, anyone?
	Name: Larry the Cow Represents: The Gentoo Linux Distribution Wired Says: Isn't Larry a guy's name? I Say: I'm more familiar with the symbol near Larry than with Larry him^H^H^Hherself...
	Name: OS-tan Represents: Microsoft Windows 98 Wired Says: Strangely compelling. I Say: I knew there was a reason I still keep a bootable Windows 98 box around...
	Name: Mike the Llama Represents: Winamp Wired Says: Good backstory, spits when angry. I Say: Odd that the sound byte, "Winamp, it really whips the llamas @55" was dropped right around the time AOL bought the makers of Winamp, Nullsoft.
	Name: Duke Represents: Sun Microsystems Java Wired Says: A 3-D Rorschach blot -- what does he signify to you? I Say: This one is new to me...and I've been around Java since its inception.

DST domesday

We're reminded of time constantly. We fidget with mobile phones, often checking for the correct time more often than for missed calls or messages. Even our escapes remind us of time. The notion of night and day has creeped into our PC and console games and the passage of time has haunted music forever. Songs such as "Time Keeps On Slipping" and "Clocks" get daily play on the Houston airwaves. And as a geek, I feel a preternatural affinity for devices that promise to allow me a few more daylight hours outside of the office.
While Benjamin Franklin may have been first to suggest saving daylight in 1784, he made no mention Daylight Saving Time (DST). It was William Willett who first officially proposed DST to the British government, though he was unable to convince Parliment to adopt it. Though often referred to as "summer time" in British English, it was the Germans (during World War One, no less) who first put DST into practice, choosing the initial dates of April 30th, 1916, through October 1st, 1916. Not to be outdone, the Brits followed suit, first adopting it between May 21st and October 1st, 1916. Newfoundland lead North America in the charge, and in March of 1918, the U.S. Congress established DST from the last Sunday in March to the last Sunday in October, only to have Congress repeal it in 1919. President Woodrow Wilson vetoed the repeal, but Congress overrode it. Despite the very American proverb, "Early to bed, early to rise," American's don't like to be told to get out of bed any earlier than they have to...
(The discussion so far has been very hemisphere-specific, as seasons flip-flop south of the equator and are virtually non-existant on the equator itself.)
Everything ticked ticked along just fine for a while... Mainframes came on the scene along with punch cards, home brew computers, then personal computers and now a myriad of devices with embedded CPUs. Then this happened:
"On August 8, 2005, President George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005. This Act changed the time change dates for Daylight Saving Time in the U.S. Beginning in 2007, DST will begin on the second Sunday in March and end the first Sunday in November. The Secretary of Energy will report the impact of this change to Congress. Congress retains the right to resume the 2005 Daylight Saving Time schedule once the Department of Energy study is complete."
What does this mean for your average geek? Dates on affected devices will show the incorrect time for three weeks in March and one week in November, causing a number of problems such as email with incorrect timestamps, events in calendaring software being displayed incorrectly and some authentication software not doing its job.
If you're just managing a handful of personal gadgets and a few home PCs, then your workload is light. If you're one of the unfortunate souls in charge of a mail server, or some other beast that deals with time sensitive transaction processing, then you could be in for a long weekend.
To avoid these problems, users either have to update their devices manually when Daylight Saving Time changes, or update their software to newer versions. A great resource for finding updates specific to your OS can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Y2K7
Incidentally, the band Coldplay's song "Clocks" was co-written by Chris Martin, great-great grandson of DST inventor William Willett.

Druid school dropout

In college, I signed up for what I thought would be an easy (A)stronomy course. I imagined myself under a starry sky, pointing out the Big Dipper and Orion's Belt to co-ed classmates for an easy letter. What I got was Stellar and Galactic Physics. Not exactly the easiest of A's, but I can now calculate redshift in my sleep.
My starlust still not satisfied, I bought a Dobsonian mounted reflector telescope during my senior year. It had an 8" mirror (a virtual light bucket) that was capable of viewing Deep Sky Objects (things that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye) by jumping from brighter to dimmer to even dimmer objects. This is often called Star Hopping. I was after big game - things like the Ring Nebula or Messier 42. I would view the moon, but never really payed attention to the method used in finding it. I mean...it's the moon. It's right there.
It became apparent that my ability to locate celestial objects was less than stellar when friend and radio host Jay Lee asked to hang out on top of my roof to get a few shots of Saturday's eclipse. Rather than relive the lunarless experience, I'll let you read his account of it instead.
So... Anyone know the appropriate astronomical term for a celestial object being eclipsed by a building?

Travel tech two

After a long night of packing and an unusually early morning in the office (Thanks, Y2K7!), I'm just hours away from leaving for Den Haag via London and Amsterdam. I'll be hotelling it this time, as opposed to renting apartments as I did in Brazil. My Cylon girlfriend has been in Europe for over a week and has been plagued with everything from sizzling power bricks to broken Voice Over IP adaptors. As a result, I'm carrying enough gear to rescue her and to keep me connected for the next few weeks.
I've got a long day of travelling ahead - IAH to Gatwick, Gatwick to Schiphol, Schiphol to Amsterdam Central and then on to Den Haag. I'll check in once I'm there. If you're going to be in that part of the world the next two weeks, drop me a line!

Transmeta case mods

am fresh back from The Netherlands via the United Kingdom. While there are many reasons people travel to that part of the world, a select few go to have certain...procedures carried out. If one doesn't pass the psychological screening or if one would prefer something a bit less permanent, several specialty shops exist where one can find something a bit more desirable. I, myself, selected something in pvc leather that was fitted specifically for me. If you're feeling adventurous, have a peek.
I need some time to sort through pictures and organize notes before giving a very lengthy description of anything. Since you last heard from me, I have encountered overpriced WiFi, real ale, locked down Access Points, odd electrical issues, Knights that say "Ni" and the UK launch of the PS3. Oh, and someone stole my shoes in Amsterdam. I have the show tonight, but I'll be back with pictures and a story or two soon...

Get your geek on!

The co-hosts of Technology Bytes will be hanging out with Groovehouse and Jennifer the Intern this Friday, February 2nd, at Tropioca, located at 2808 Milam at Drew. Friends and fans, alike, will be on hand to talk tech, goggle the latest gadgetry, and revel in all things geeky at this month's Geek Gathering. Free WiFi, a plethora of tapioca drinks, and ample parking make this a meetup worth making.
If Saturday morning rolls around and you find yourself still riding the silicon snake, you can head over to the HAL-PC headquarters to catch the first of two monthly presentations put on by the Houston Linux Users Group, aka HLUG. The meeting gets started at two in the afternoon, breaks for a few minutes around three, and by four, participants are ready to be re-released into the wild with some freshly learned linux skillz. Whether you're a Linux zealot or simply one of the Li-curious, chances are good that you'll walk out of this month's meeting with a smile and some freshly honed Linux skillz.

It is very cold in space

Earlier this week, Dwight Silverman put together his list of what he considers to be the top fifteen geek movies to see before you die. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn made Dwight's list and was the first Star Trek movie that I saw in a theater. As a result, it is indelibly etched in my sci-fi subconcious.
One scene aboard the U.S.S. Reliant unfolds in the following manner:
Joachim: They're requesting communications, sir.
Khan: Let them eat static.
Joachim: They're still running with shields down.
Khan: Of course. We're one big happy fleet. Ah, Kirk, my old friend, do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold?
(pause)
Khan: It is very cold in space.
While this is certainly true, the operating temperature of the Orion chip is about 500 times colder than interstellar space and roughly 750 times colder than the chilliest Klingon vendetta. With a base temperature of 5mK, or 0.005 degrees above absolute zero, the Orion will power a 16-qubit adiabatic quantum computer, set to perform some 64,000 calculations simultaneously (in parallel "universes") during a demonstration in D-Wave's labs next Tuesday.
While the academic world is taking a wait-and-see approach, you're free to ogle the pictures right now! Can anyone tell me at which temperature drool freezes?

Bruce Schneier facts

The Internet is a wealth of information. For example, we now know that when the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris. Another hard Internet fact? Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants. The compendium of facts about Chuck Norris, the people's hero, grows nearly every day.
But who represents us? Who is the geek's hero? A person who employs might of mind over strength of sinew; someone who will keep us (and our data!) safe at night... I believe I have the answer.
Bruce Schneier.
Wikipedia tells us that, "Schneier's Applied Cryptography is a popular and widely regarded reference work for cryptography. Schneier has designed or co-designed several cryptographic algorithms, including the Blowfish, Twofish and MacGuffin block ciphers, the Helix and Phelix stream ciphers, and the Yarrow and Fortuna cryptographically secure pseudo-random number generators. Solitaire is a cryptographic algorithm developed by Schneier for use by people without access to a computer, called Pontifex in Neal Stephenson's novel Cryptonomicon. He is the author or coauthor of hundreds of academic cryptography papers."
I was seduced by crypto in college. I think that many of us "experimented" a bit as we came of age in the safe geek harbor of computer lab life... I would keep my copy of Applied Cryptography at the front of my backpack, letting it peek out ever so slightly at the passing geek girls. I realize now that this kind of behavior was much like dangling a set of Porsche keys while strolling down the grocery store aisles, but hey...cryptography was sexxy and I wanted to flaunt it. And Bruce Schneier was my hero.
If you're still unconvinced, perhaps some of the following facts will sway you.
Bruce Schneier does not leak information on the EM spectrum: he emits the theme to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Bruce Schneier once killed a man using only linear cryptanalysis.
The spacing between Bruce Schneiers ribs forms an Optimal Golomb Ruler.
Compilers don't warn Bruce Schneier, Bruce Schneier warns compilers.
There are no prime numbers. Only numbers that Bruce Schneier does not want you to factor.
Bruce Schneier has a "compsci 100 life" tatoo on his back.
Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat.
The last person to attempt to steal Bruce Schneier's identity lost his memory and has never recovered.
There is no Information Theory. Just data that Bruce Schneier allows to be quantified and transmitted on a channel.
And remember... Bruce Schneier expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Geek Gathering Friday night!

A Geek Gathering is exactly what it sounds like: a bunch of geeks meet up to, well, geek out over new technology, gadgets, and tales of digital adventure. In this instance, the crew of Technology Bytes will be hanging out with listeners of the show at a bubble tea house that serves up pizza, smoothies and tapioca, all showered in 2.4GHz goodness.
The details? Friday, January 4th, at 7:30 PM. Tropioca Teahouse in Midtown Houston, located at 2808 Milam at Drew. Feel free to bring any WiFi enabled devices as well as any new toys or gadgets picked up over the holidays. Hope to see some of you there!

iWant

If you're already a member of the Cult of Mac, then you've no doubt spent all morning online buzzing about the new iPhone, Apple TV, and the even smaller shuffle. If this is news to you, then you may want to follow the above links before picking up your new cult robes in San Francisco.
This morning, my HTC Wizard (TMobile flavored) decided that it no longer desired to take a charge without a healthy amount of cooing and cajoling. Hopefully I'll be able to nurse it along until the release date of the iPhone. If not, the second generation of the device is out, which doubles the processing power, ups the WiFi to 802.11g, and doubles the resomolution of the built-in camera. I suppose that my uncertain iFuture is now in fate's hands...

Rio redux revived

Below are some techy vacation photos from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. If you click on a thumbnail, you'll be taken to a larger shot of what is pictured. If it isn't working for you, make sure you don't have pop-ups disabled on your browser.

	I needed some portable entertainment of the electronic variety for all of the queueing I would be doing on my travel days to and from Brazil. The old-skool coloring of the Nintendo Gameboy Advance did the trick! Link and the Mario Brothers kept us company. You can see the flight map on the display in the seat back. We were about to begin our descent into Sao Paolo at the time this shot was taken.
	The TrendNet broadband router at the penthouse provided connectivity to the four bedrooms. Speed tests to a US server showed 538kbps up, 714kbps down. Connecting to sites within Brazil yeilded better results. Trendnet seemed to be a very popular brand in South America. Notice the array of patch cable crimp jobs adorning the back of the router...
	The Linksys WRT-54G AP/Router was connected directly to the TrendNet Broadband Router. Placement was determined by centrality to the balcony and bedrooms, and the location of the only un-overloaded wall plug in the house. Unlike downtown Houston, the Copacabana 2.5GHz band was not at all crowded. A spectrum analyzer showed more spikes caused by garage door remotes than it did WiFi traffic.
	My evening office, made possible by Broadband and WiFi. Life can be very harsh for an IT professional... The building to the right is the Copacabana Palace Hotel, sitting just yards away from the Atlantic Ocean.
	The Vonage phone adaptor connected to the ethernet jack under the desk in my bedroom. There was also a phone jack that connected to the penthouse's existing phone system, which consisted of two strands of twisted copper wire strung throughout the structure. Disconnecting the house phone network from the two leads coming into the penthouse proved to be no difficult task. All that was left was to connect the Vonage device to the house phone network, and viola! - 713 dialtone in Rio de Janeiro!
	McInternet? Broadband with cheese, please!
	What to do on Thanksgiving while in another country? Tired of tracking down turkey like I have done in years past, I headed to the American Staple, McDonalds. The McDonald's in Rio opened to the street, had a special streetside counter for deserts, and offered web surfing stations branded with the McInternet moniker.
	While petty crime is the most common in Rio de Janeiro, one must also protect against break-ins. In addition to the security guard at the entrance of our building, the penthouse was equipped with a video phone that allowed us to view and communicate with people in the elevator hallway before buzzing them in or unlocking our own doors.
	This piece of technology had some promise, but the MS Windows install wasn't playing very nicely with some of the hardware drivers. This computer, locked away in a weatherproof shell, sits atop the lower observation deck on Pão de Açúcar. It has a touch screen interface and webcam (with a powerful optical zoom) that allows tourists to magnify far away locations and landmarks. Based on the position of the unit's head, infomation about a particular area or landmark is displayed to the user. A planned WiFi link would then let tourists take pictures that can be sent to cell phones and email addresses in near real time.

I have a few more shots that I will post next week. They were taken on a techy shopping trip to what must be Rio's equivalent of Tokyo's Akihabara district.

Now that Dwight has returned from CES; we should have the regular crew on tonight's show. You can tune in from 8:00 - 10:00 PM on 90.1 FM or stream it directly from kpft.org. We'll also be hanging out in #techbytes on irc.cuckoo.com. If you don't have an IRC client already installed, you may use the java client located on the Technology Bytes site.

Ink refills and puppy-cams

Knock-off iPods, inkjet refills and puppy-cams! Oh my!

These were taken on a techy shopping trip to what must be Rio's equivalent of Tokyo's Akihabara district.

	The Tech Mall was housed in the bottom four stories of a high rise office building in downtown Rio de Janeiro. Being the 6'2" redhead that I am, I drew some attention to myself when I was first lining up a shot of some Apple knock-offs. As a result, the rest of the shots were hastily taken. While the quality suffered, I was happy to be able to capture the shots that I did.
	Brazilian SPAM filters must be advanced to the point of forcing inkjet refillers to move to the malls.
	Has anyone come across one of these in the US? I hung around for fifteen or twenty minutes, but didn't get to see the technician in action.
	Since long distance phone calls are prohibitively expensive, most young people leverage voice over IP technologies from broadband connections or Internet Kiosks. The phone showed here is a Bluetooth cordless phone that makes VoiP calls from a Windows machine connected to the Internet.
	Hmmm... Some of these webcams don't really look like webcams... From the plush puppy-cam (the nose knows) that could easily be overlooked as such to the Aibo-esque robo-dog-cam, chances are good that you can find a cam that with fit your fancy.
	I really liked the 1950's sci-fi look of this assortment of webcams.
	iPods are definitely status symbols among the wealthy in Rio. Imported electronics are subject to tarrifs, driving the price of an already expensive piece of Apple gear to new heights. As a result, a large number of near-Pods have snuck in under the radar.
	At first glance, this looks like an older iPod. Take a closer look, and you can see that it is a rather nice knock-off.

Geek Gathering this Friday at Tropioca! See you there!