Technology
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
I saw this
over at Ace’s Place, and thoroughly enjoyed both the music and the visual display.
Yeah, it’s old, but I haven’t posted it before.
Enjoy.
What A Clip - video powered by Metacafe
Monday, June 23, 2008
Okay, I’m stumped
I’ve found a really cool mp3 file that I want to use as my custom cellphone ringtone, but I have no idea how to upload it to my phone.
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to do this that doesn’t cost me anything (or very much) and doesn’t put my phone number on multiple spamming text lists? (I have enough people calling me, and have spent five years to almost completely purge my fax machine from such lists after signing up for ONE thing that “required” the number.)
Lots of sites only too happy to do it ”FREE”, but they seem REALLY eager to do it ABSOLUTELY FREE OF CHARGE JUST ENTER YOUR CELL PHONE NUMBER HERE
(By the way you will also have to sign up for our newsletter at only $0.49 per hour charged to your cell account and by downloading this ringtone you agree to put up with this scam to empty your pockets for as long as you or anyone you know own a ringtone, or you agree to pay us triple damages plus lots of other legal mumbo-jumbo you will certainly regret not reading before you click the link.)
Help?
Update: My granddaughter (God bless her) took about three minutes of punching buttons on my cell phone to send a picture of herself to my email account, and then (in another 45 seconds) managed to reply to it, including the really cool sound attachments.
So the younger generation to the rescue!
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Solar Activity Has An Effect On Earth’s Climate
Al Gore’s head just exploded
Every day, scientists hoping to see an increase in solar activity train their instruments at the sun as it crosses the sky. This is no idle academic pursuit: A lull in solar action could potentially drive the planet’s temperature down, or even prompt a mini Ice Age.
For millennia, thermonuclear forces inside the star have followed a regular rhythm, causing its magnetic field to peak and ebb, on average, every 11 years. Space weathermen are watching for telltale increases in sunspots, which would signal the start of a new cycle, predicted to have started last March and expected to peak in 2012. “When the sun’s active, it’s a little bit brighter,” explains Ken Tapping, a solar researcher and project director for Canada’s National Research Council.
So far, Tapping reports no change in the magnetic field strength, as measured by radio telescopes. On the more positive side, last month NASA reported a small, earth-sized sunspot with a magnetic field pointing in the opposite direction from those in the previous cycle; qualities that designate the spot as a signal of a new upturn in activity. At the solar maximum, scientists expect to see between 75 and 150 such sunspots per day.
Tapping oversees the operation of a 60-year-old radio telescope that he calls a “stethoscope for the sun.” Recent magnetic field readings are as low as he’s ever seen, he says, and he’s worked with the instrument for more than 25 years. If the sun remains this quiet for another a year or two, it may indicate the star has entered a downturn that, if history is any precedent, could trigger a planetary cold spell that could bring massive snowfall and severe weather to the Northern Hemisphere.
The last such solar funk corresponded with a period of bitter cold that began around 1650 and lasted, with intermittent spikes of warming, until 1715. While there were competing causes for the climatic shift—including the Black Death’s depopulation of tree-cutting Europeans and, more substantially, increased volcanic activity spewing ash into the atmosphere—the sun’s lethargy likely had something to do with it. (emphasis added)
Via Protein Wisdom.
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Brain Drain
Dude… back off...
I would become the most anti-technological person in the world if this became a reality in the workplace.
Microsoft is developing Big Brother-style software capable of remotely monitoring a worker’s productivity, physical wellbeing and competence.
The Times has seen a patent application filed by the company for a computer system that links workers to their computers via wireless sensors that measure their metabolism. The system would allow managers to monitor employees’ performance by measuring their heart rate, body temperature, movement, facial expression and blood pressure. Unions said they fear that employees could be dismissed on the basis of a computer’s assessment of their physiological state.
Technology allowing constant monitoring of workers was previously limited to pilots, firefighters and Nasa astronauts. This is believed to be the first time a company has proposed developing such software for mainstream workplaces.
Microsoft submitted a patent application in the US for a “unique monitoring system” that could link workers to their computers. Wireless sensors could read “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, movement facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure”, the application states.
The system could also “automatically detect frustration or stress in the user” and “offer and provide assistance accordingly”. Physical changes to an employee would be matched to an individual psychological profile based on a worker’s weight, age and health. If the system picked up an increase in heart rate or facial expressions suggestive of stress or frustration, it would tell management that he needed help.
Seriously, I would end up being one of those weirdos who goes on a rampage and spends the rest of his life living in the forest.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Digital Love
The only way nerds will ever get laid.
I guess nerds had to figure out some way to get laid. It’s too bad the gals they’re going to be with will be made out of metal and circuit boards.
The University of Maastricht in the Netherlands is awarding a doctorate to a researcher who wrote a paper on marriages between humans and robots.
David Levy, a British artificial intelligence researcher at the college, wrote in his thesis, “Intimate Relationships with Artificial Partners,” that trends in robotics and shifting attitudes on marriage are likely to result in sophisticated robots that will eventually be seen as suitable marriage partners.
Levy’s conclusion was based on about 450 publications in the fields of psychology, sexology, sociology, robotics, materials science, artificial intelligence, gender studies and computer-human interaction.
The thesis examines human attitudes toward affection, love and sexuality and concluded that the findings are just as applicable to human interaction with robots of the future as they are to the relationships between humans of today.
How in the hell is this satisfying in any way, shape, or form?
A while back I read about how the tech field attracts a lot of people with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism. Instead of being totally disconnected because of inoperative brain functions that are neither their fault of something within their control, as with typical forms of autism, those with Asperger’s tend to be intelligent yet unable to relate socially. If you look at a lot of engineers and techies, they exhibit many of the symptoms and actions that those with Asperger’s have, from the intense interest in subjects that no one else would touch, to the monotone drawl during speeches that never seem to end. Many of them are never involves in relationships because they are unable to relate to normal people, and Silicon Valley has shown the highest increase in children born with autism because the techies hook up with each other, get married, and both parents who have Asperger’s spawn children who are now autistic. But in places where the techie population isn’t high, it’s not hard to see how they would find attraction in a computer built similar to a human being who can relate to them in ways the everyday person never will be able to.
What a strange world we live in.
UPDATE: Here is part of the article linked above about Silicon Valley’s high degree of children born with autism. Interesting reading below the jump.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
SueThePantsOffPoorPeople.com
That’s what it looks like.
If I knew that I would be living off of food stamps and tap water for the rest of my life because I decided to download some MP3’s, I’d not only be pissed off, but I might go postal.
In the first US trial to challenge the illegal downloading of music on the Internet, a single mother from Minnesota was ordered Thursday to pay 220,000 dollars for sharing 24 songs online.
Jammie Thomas, 30, was the first among more than 26,000 people sued by the world’s most powerful recording companies to refuse a settlement after being slapped with a lawsuit by the Recording Industry of America and six major music labels.
She turned down an offer to pay a few thousands dollars in fines and instead took the case to court.
Unlike some who insist on the right to share files over the Internet, Thomas says she was wrongfully targeted by SafeNet, a contractor employed by the recording industry to patrol the Internet for copyrighted material.
Her lawyer said earlier this week that she had racked up some 60,000 dollars in legal fees because she refused to be bullied.
And while Thomas insisted on the courthouse steps that she had never downloaded or uploaded music, her lawyer tried to convince jurors there was no way to prove who had uploaded songs on the Kazaa file sharing network.
A jury took just five hours to decide that evidence provided by the music labels showed otherwise and found Thomas guilty of copyright infringement, court records showed.
Thomas, an employee of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe, an Indian tribe, was ordered to pay a 9,250-dollar fine for each of 24 shared songs cited in the case, including Godsmack’s “Spiral,” Destiny’s Child’s “Bills, Bills, Bills” and Sara McLachlan’s “Building a Mystery.”
It could have been a lot worse.
The fine could have reached 150,000 dollars a song if the jury had found “willful” copyright infringement.
Had the record companies sued her for all 1,702 songs found in the online folder the fine could have run in the millions.
Listen, I’m not going to complain about the legal system. I do that enough. I could go on for days, but it’ll do no good. The only thing I’m going to say about this is that anyone who thinks about this from a realistic point of view knows that there is no way in the world that this gal will be able to pay a couple of hundred thousand dollars in fines on top of her sixty grand in legal fees. It just won’t happen because it can’t happen. The only thing that is going to happen is that she will file for bankruptcy, it’ll probably be granted, and she will have jacked up credit for the rest of her life and the inability to get a worthwhile job with a BK on her record, and the record companies will not get a dime. To top it off, the record companies now look like monumental douche bags for bringing a lawsuit about file sharing to this level.
I’m not saying that what she did was right. But it’s not a criminal matter so it just becomes a matter of deep pockets, and you would think the record industry could spend their time doing better things than going after file sharers.
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Dish Ripoff
Here we go again...
A year ago I canceled my subscription with Charter because their cable costs were outrageous and signed up for DISH Network. Within the past year they have raised their rates so much that I went from saving $60 bucks a month to only saving $30 bucks. Now, it’s still less, but I’m left wondering if I’ll be back where I started a year from now.
Seriously, you can’t win at this game.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Technology In Action
Freakin’ lasers on their heads!
Come on you dirtbags, take your best shot.
To simulate an intercept, the prototype Airborne Laser actively tracked an airborne target, compensated for atmospheric turbulence and fired a “surrogate” for a missile-zapping high-energy laser, they said.
“We have now demonstrated most of the steps needed for the Airborne Laser to engage a threat missile and deliver precise and lethal effects against it,” said Pat Shanahan, a vice president at Boeing, the prime contractor.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel John Daniels, the Pentagon’s program manager, said the test on Saturday marked an historic day for “directed-energy” weapons firing at the speed of light, or 186,000 miles per second.
“This will fundamentally change the way we engage and destroy fleeting targets,” he said.
The airborne laser is to be the first warplane relying entirely on a directed energy device as a weapon. It is designed to destroy an enemy ballistic missile shortly after it is launched, in the “boost phase” of its flight path.
The program will have cost about $US5 billion ($5.75 billion) from its inception in the early 1990s through a scheduled test intercept test of a mock enemy missile in August 2009, Lt-Col Daniels said.
The modified Boeing 747-400F took off from Edwards Air Force Base, California. It used its infrared sensors and a tracking laser to zero in on a “target board” on an Air Force aircraft, Boeing said.
The aircraft fired the tracking laser at the target aircraft, dubbed Big Crow, for the first time on March 15. The test on Friday demonstrated an ability to go from passive tracking of a simulated missile engine “plume” to active tracking, Boeing said.
In addition, the Lockheed Martin Corp. beam control and fire control system was used to offset atmospheric turbulence in conjunction with the active tracking and firing of the device standing in for the chemical oxygen-iodine laser, the company said.
Engineers will start installing the actual high-energy laser, built by Northrop Grumman Corp, in coming months to prepare for the intercept test.
Of course, this really won’t do much when it comes to crazy Arabs who like to blow themselves up in crowded shopping centers and clubs.
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Site upgrade
With many, many thanks to JimK for handling the dirty-hands behind the scenes stuff, I am pleased to announce that we are upgrading the software of this domain.
Please let me know if there are any problems you experiencing, along with any specifics—which version of what browser you are using, etc. (Not that I’ll be able to do shite about it, but I WILL pass it along to Jim.)
Friday, December 15, 2006
One thing wrong with torrent sites
Especially those who will either warn you or ban you for “hit and runs”. Which is most of them.
That one thing is the simple nature of reality. Seeding torrents is a little like a pyramid scheme - where those who got in early get to keep their dl/ul “ratio” (the ratio of the amount of data being uploaded is divided by the amount of data being received) greater than 1.0 - they upload more than they download.
Let’s walk you through this:
- the original uploader of a file (say, an audio lecture of Mesopotamian pottery) will post a torrent file, which contains all of the necessary information to identify the file, the number of pieces into which it has been split, where each of those pieces are located, etc.
- the first few amateur archaeologists who want to hear the latest details on finding the chamber pot of Xerxes will see the file and download it - this gives the original uploader an effective ratio of infinity (since he is doing nothing but uploading), while the second generation will have much smaller fractions, since the only uploading they are doing at this point is grabbing data (which counts as “downloading") and sharing it among each other.
- The third generation will allow those in the second generation who are actually interested in improving their ratios to increase that ratio to above 100% as they seed to the johnny-come-latelies, but since the number of seeders is greater than the original seeder (who has already gotten his super-high ratio), the upload totals will be evenly split among them all, and as they reach their 100% goal, they drop off line (hey, there are more torrents out there, right?)
- By the time you get a few days down the road, there is no new interest in the torrent file (how many students of Mesopotamian pottery can there be, eh?), and the third (or fourth) generation of downloaders have gotten the entire file, but there is no one else to upload to so as to improve their own ratios, so they sit… and sit… waiting for someone new to come along to download the file.
So that poor schmuck waits a week or so with nary a byte being uploaded on a torrent where his ratio is less than 10%. He gives up in disgust and moves on, and receives a warning - or gets banned - for “hit and running” (leeching from the site with no intention of reseeding for others).
Just like a pyramid scheme, where the one who starts the whole thing makes nothing but profit, early “investors” get repaid by those who follow after, and the later suckers seeders get screwed.
Suggestions? Comments?
Monday, December 04, 2006
Worth the five minutes
and entirely safe for work (unless your boss frowns on you doing something other than work while you’re at work, of course...)
This is just REALLY fucking cool, and I have to wonder how long it actually took to do…
Enjoy!
Monday, November 27, 2006
The 100 Greatest Catchphrases
TV Land has managed to put together the definitive list of the 100 Greatest Catchphrases from television over the decades. I can think of a few that were completely left off the list. I’m sure you can, too.
Give us your best forgotten television catchphrases…
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
There Goes The Neighborhood
Wow. One of the coolest shots you’ll see this year.
Some of his commenters seem to report that the POV seems a little low for even LEO (Low Earth Orbit), and they make good points, but it is still an incredibly cool photo nonetheless.
Friday, October 13, 2006
Do you notice a difference?
I’ve cut a lot of the function calls to other sites in the left column. If JimK would be willing to lend me a bit more of his superlative technical expertise, we might go for a redesign so that content comes up before the “less worthwhile” stuff in the left column. I’ve got DSL and the page loads within just a few seconds for me, so I never really thought about it.
If you notice a difference, please leave a comment telling what kind of connection you have to the intertubes, how long it now takes to load and how long it used to take.
Saturday, August 26, 2006
License and Registration, Please
Blasted technology!
Is anyone having problems registering on the site? If so, shoot an e-mail to helo (at) drumwaster (dot) com and I’ll forward them to the boss.
{Or, conversely, they could e-mail the Boss directly at drmwstr-at-gmail(dot)com.} 