gotnull.com Blog

IPHONE SDK BETA 2 RELEASED.

The second beta version of the iPhone SDK is now available and includes Interface Builder, a powerful tool that allows you to visually build your interface and makes creating a UI as simple as drag and drop. They've also added new sample code and updated documentation to the rich set of resources available to you in the iPhone Dev Center. View the "Beta 1 to Beta 2 API Delta":http://developer.apple.com/iphone/library/releasenotes/Miscellaneous/RN-iPhoneBetaAPIDiffs/index.html.

DOOMSDAY? HADRON COLLIDER.

In what can only be considered a bizarre court case, a former nuclear safety officer and others are suing the U.S. Department of Energy, Fermilab, the National Science Foundation and CERN "to stop the use of the LHC":http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/03/27/823924.aspx (Large Hadron Collider) until its safety is reassessed. The plaintiffs cite three possible 'doomsday' scenarios which might occur if the LHC becomes operational: the creation of microscopic black holes which would grow and swallow matter, the creation of strangelets which, if they touch other matter, would convert that matter into strangelets or the creation of magnetic monopoles which could start a chain reaction and convert atoms to other forms of matter. CERN will hold a public open house meeting on April 6 with word having been spread to some researchers to be prepared to answer questions on microscopic black holes and strangelets if asked.

SLEEPING.

Okay, so I hadn't written a Blog Post for 67 days. I think that's probably the longest I've been without actually posting any useless crap at all. Well, at the moment I'm working on what I'd like to call a big big project. I'll keep you _posted_ (pun intended).

HIDDEN AND UNFAMILIAR.

Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are "1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium":http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/galleries/hidden_and_unfamiliar/06hau.php. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity. It is estimated to be the most curies under one roof in the United States. The blue glow is created by the Cherenkov Effect. which describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, giving off energy, moves faster than light through a transparent medium. The temperatures of the capsules are as high as 330 degrees Fahrenheit. The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds. Hanford is among the most contaminated sites in the United States.

DNA SCAN.

ZDNet is reporting that "23andme.com":https://www.23andme.com/ will open its doors on Monday, allowing you to send them a cheek swab and have "your DNA analyzed for $999":http://blogs.zdnet.com/Google/?p=813 (plus shipping). So what's a thousand bucks buy you? They can tell you your ancient ancestry, they can tell you what diseases you're predisposed to and they also give you a "Gene Explorer" that allows you to do a search in your genome to find out if you have a certain gene.

CLOVERFIELD SPECULATION.

Picture of The Day: "Speculation on The Cloverfield Monster":http://img261.imageshack.us/img261/8604/1195555256323kx5.jpg. As improbable as this concept initially seems, pieces of this puzzle are starting to fall into place. The "odd vocalization":http://forums.unfiction.com/forums/files/sound1_1187997095.mp3 from the "official site":http://www.1-18-08.com/. The "aquatic entry":http://www.cloverfieldmovie.com/. The text on the "Slusho site":http://www.slusho.jp/ and "Tagruato sites":http://tagruato.jp/deepsea.php. Maybe this is another JJ Abrams red herring leading up to the grand reveal. Either way, it's far more interesting than another giant stompy reptile.

X-RAY HELMET.

Australian pilots flying the new generation of fighter jets now under development will wear "bespoke, high-tech helmets":http://www.theage.com.au/news/technology/xray-helmet-set-to-revolutionise-aerial-warfare/2007/11/16/1194766908490.html equipped with a feature that gives airmen simulated X-ray vision. The cutting edge headgear, which looks like it's been sourced from a Star Wars costume department, is being tested by Royal Air Force (RAF) scientists at the Boscombe Down base south-west of London.

MOON DISASTER EVENT.

Wikipedia: "In Event of Moon Disaster":http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/In_Event_of_Moon_Disaster. Contingency speech to be delivered by President Richard M. Nixon if the Apollo 11 astronauts were stranded on the moon.

NASA SPENDS BIG.

"NASA spends between $400,000 and $1.3 million on a party":http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/09/eveningnews/main3481918.shtml at every shuttle launch, according to CBS. Select personnel are treated to 5 days at a 4 star hotel. This year alone, they've spent $4 million on parties. NASA asked for, and was given, $1 billion more from the Senate this year. NASA proponents argue it makes more sense to give money to talented, productive people in exchange for scientific knowledge, than spend in on unproductive people in the form of straight welfare.

1-18-08 NEW TRAILER.

All has been relatively quiet on the 1-18-08 front for the last few months since the San Diego Comic-Con, but a source for ComingSoon.net has revealed to us that the J.J. Abrams-produced monster movie will get a new trailer AND its title will finally be revealed on November 16 in front of Robert Zemeckis' animated Beowulf. So far, we know very little about the movie beyond what we've seen in the teaser this past summer, the pictures on the official site, the director and writer (Matt Reeves and Drew Goddard) and some of its cast (Michael Stahl-David, Odet Jasmin, Mike Vogel, Lizzy Kaplan), but hopefully, more will become clear in a few weeks.

THE ORANGE BOX.

It's hard to talk about what Valve's "The Orange Box":http://au.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2episode2ob/review.html?mode=gsreview offers without immediately falling into an impression of some sort of late-night pitchman for fantasy knives and alternative cleaning products. That's partially because the name "The Orange Box" sounds more like some kind of citrus-scented bathroom cleanser than a video game, and partially because this five-games-in-one package is the kind of crazy deal that almost forces you to shout "Now how much would you pay?" With three amazing new games and two classics all in one package, it's impossible to go wrong with "The Orange Box":http://au.gamespot.com/pc/action/halflife2episode2ob/review.html?mode=gsreview.

EVOLUTION GRAFFITI.

"The evolution of man, on a wall":http://www.i-am-bored.com/evolution_grafitti.html.

BB IS REALLY WATCHING.

The BBC has a nice "high-level overview of some technologies for surveillance":http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6995061.stm developed in the US and the UK. 'The US and UK governments are developing increasingly sophisticated gadgets to keep individuals under their surveillance. When it comes to technology, the US is determined to stay ahead of the game ... But it [a through-the wall sensing device in development] will also show whether someone inside a house is looking to harm you, because if they are, their heart rate will be raised. And 10 years from now, the technology will be much smarter. We'll scan a person with one of these things and tell what they're actually thinking.

HL2 SOUNDTRACK.

"Half-Life 2 Soundtrack":http://gh.ffshrine.org/soundtracks/458 and the "official track listing":http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=91802, so that you don't have to extract it using GCFScape like I did. Added bit of trivia: I didn't realize, until reading the "Wikipedia article":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2#Soundtrack, that much of HL2's soundtrack were repurposed songs from the first Half-Life.

HTML 5 ELEMENTS.

"New Elements in HTML 5":http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-html5/?ca=dgr-lnxw01NewHTML. The semantic Web just got semantic-er.

VIRTUAL EARTH NUCLEAR SECRET.

"NewsCloud":http://www.newscloud.com/ alerts us to a story a few months old that has been getting a lot of play recently. A Seattle blogger, Dan Twohig, was browsing in Microsoft's Virtual Earth when he accidentally came across a photo of a nuclear sub in dry-dock. Its propeller is clearly visible - this was a major no-no on the part of someone at the Bangor Sub Base. The designs of such stealth propellers have been secret for decades. Twohig "blogged about the find and linked to the Virtual Earth photo":http://www.monstermaritime.com/07022007/the-amazing-things-that-you-can-find-on-the-internet-2/ on July 2. The debate about security vs. Net-accessible aerial photography has been building ever since. The story was "picked up on military.china.com":http://military.china.com/zh_cn/important/11052771/20070817/14283500.html on Aug. 17 - poetic justice for the "Chinese sub photo": that had embarrassed them a month before. On Aug. 20 the "Navy Times published the article":http://www.navytimes.com/news/2007/08/navy_insecurity_070819w/ that most mainstream media have picked up in their more recent coverage. "Twohig's blog":http://www.monstermaritime.com/ is the best source to follow the ongoing debate. No one has asked Microsoft, Google, or anyone else to blur the photo in question. Kind of late now.

COLLABORATIVE GOOGLE VIDEO.

Google asked people to help them imagine "how an email message":https://mail.google.com/mail/help/gmail_video.html#utm_source=en-et-newfea2&utm_medium=et&utm_campaign=en travels around the world. All it took was a video camera, the Gmail M-velope, and some creativity.

IPHONE HACK.

Armed with a soldering iron and a large supply of energy drinks, a slight, curly haired teenager "has developed a way":http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/an-iphone-hack-by-george/2007/08/25/1187462599376.html to make the iPhone, arguably the gadget of the year, available to a much wider audience. George Hotz of Glen Rock, New Jersey, spent his last (northern hemisphere) summer before college figuring out how to "unlock" the iPhone, freeing it from being restricted to a single carrier, AT&T.

BUMBLEBEE PAPER.

This is "f***ing amazing":http://wonderdasher.blog.sohu.com/59275208.html!

IONIC WIND ENGINES.

Researchers have demonstrated a new technology using tiny "ionic wind engines" that might "dramatically improve computer chip cooling":http://www.physorg.com/news106241639.html, possibly addressing a looming threat to future advances in computers and electronics. Purdue researchers funded by Intel have improved the "heat-transfer coefficient" by some 250%. I never liked water cooled systems, and this sounds promising. However I wonder how much ozone one of these things produces.

BUM FIGHT.

AN insult about a "man's low-hanging jeans":http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22242562-2,00.html led to a wild fight in a suburban Caboolture street that involved a stabbing, assault with a tree branch, and a karate-style kick to the head.

METEORITE STOLEN.

Russian news agency Interfax is reporting that "thieves have stolen":http://www.newlaunches.com/archives/3_tonne_meteorite_stolen_in_russia.php a three-ton meteorite from the yard of the Tunguska Space Event foundation, whose director said it was the part of meteor that caused a massive explosion in Siberia in 1908. The massive three tonne rock was bought to Krasnoyarsk after an 2004 expedition to the site of the so-called Tunguska event- a mysterious mid air explosion over Siberia in 1908 was 1,000 times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. The foundation's director Yury Lavbin claimed to have discovered the wreckage of an alien spacecraft during the expedition

HUGE HEIST.

HACKERS have "stolen confidential data":http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,22234753-5013040,00.html on 60,000 Norwegians, including the head of the responsible agency for safeguarding them.

1-18-08

Okay, so I made a discovery. I was playing around with a SWF Decompiler and managed to decompile the Flash file on the "1-18-08.com":http://www.1-18-08.com/ website. I looked through the code for the main SWF file and discovered that parts of the code referenced an "images" directory. After further investigations. It revealed that you can directly access the individual photos via the URL. "Photo 1":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_1.swf "Photo 2":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_2.swf "Photo 3":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_3.swf "Photo 4":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_4.swf "Photo 5":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_5.swf I decompiled each individual file and noticed that there was also a reference to more files. "Photo B 1":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_1_b.swf "Photo B 2":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_2_b.swf (Letter text within this image). "Photo B 3":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_3_b.swf "Photo B 4":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_4_b.swf "Photo B 5":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_5_b.swf (Letter text within this image). Yup, now you see it don't you? "Photo B 2":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_2_b.swf and "Photo B 5":http://www.1-18-08.com/images/pic_5_b.swf reveal letters. They read like the following: *PHOTO B 2:* _Dont forget who takes care of you!_ _Love J_ *PHOTO B 5:* _Lascano, Platt and Robbie - Jan 2008_ _Robbie, Here, use this photo to send a message of my hotness far and wide!!!_ _Love, Jamie_ I haven't looked into this any further and will let the public try and figure out some more clues! If for some reason you don't have Flash installed, I have taken screen shots of the two letters and hosted them on my site. They can be found here: "Photo B 2 (Full res)":http://www.gotnull.com/images/1-18-08/pic_2_b.jpg. "Photo B 5 (Full res)":http://www.gotnull.com/images/1-18-08/pic_5_b.jpg. Enjoy! Don't forget to comment on your thoughts and ideas here!

NEUROSKY.

"In this video":http://actionnooz.com/video/tech/neurosky-technology-makes-you-a-telepath-with-brain-tech, scientists have developed a great technology that lets you “control” objects, via electric interface, based on your levels of concentration and emotion. It is interfaced with the brain, analyzing pre-recorded responses and translating them to the electronic interface, essentially making a person a telepath that can control objects with thoughts. Xbox and Playstation probably have some good gaming times ahead, let along other technological industries.

CHIHUAHUA

A PUPPY has been born in Japan with a large, clear, love-heart-shaped pattern in is coat. The chihuahua was born in May as one of a litter to a breeder. "In pictures: Heart-kun, the love-heart puppy":http://www.news.com.au/gallery/0,23607,5024207-5007150,00.html. Shop owner Emiko Sakurada said it was the first time a puppy with the marks had been born out of a thousand she had bred. She had no plans to sell the puppy, which has been named "Heart-kun".

EL CHOMBO.

Someone couldn't help but notice that the Chaccaron song sounds a lot like the legend that is James Bottomtooth III from "Family Guy":http://www.familyguy.com/. So using a wee bit of editing "he came up with this":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmyWwMFvb94.

OUCH.

So when some nutbag finds grill marks on a toasted cheese sandwich that look like the Virgin Mary, it's hailed as a sign from God, but when "lightning fries the ever-living shit out of a statue of Jesus":http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5944929, it's just a random coincidence? Get outta here, I'm so confused.

FLYING CHICKEN.

"The flying chicken":http://www.upirate.com/Slingshot-Flying-Chicken-With-Scream-Sound-($3.99-on-sale)-(lists-for-$7.99)-p49.html works like a slingshot and screams while flying. It is approximately 11 inches long and will fly well over 50 feet. The harder you pull back the further it will fly. Slingshot Chicken flies with a cockadoodle scream Sound! Makes an excellent toy for kids or adult recreation

GOOGLE GETS PWND!

Google may be slowly taking over the world, but that didn't stop eBay from putting it in its place. When Google invited eBay sellers attending the eBay Live! party in Boston this week to the "Google Checkout":www.google.com/checkout Freedom Party - which was designed to poke fun at eBay’s restrictive policies - eBay got a little upset. So what do you do if you’re the "world’s largest auction site":http://www.ebay.com.au/ and the world’s largest search engine tries to make fun of you? Simple, you "hit 'em where it hurts":http://www.jonholato.com/2007/06/13/ebay-pwns-google/: the wallet. eBay took down all U.S. advertising on Google, which led Google to cancel the party in order to make eBay happy again.

CUSTOMISE GOOGLE.

"CustomiseGoogle":http://www.customizegoogle.com/: An incredibly handy Firefox plug-in to decrapify each of Google's services, by randomizing cross-session IDs, disabling tracking redirects, excising sponsored links, and a wealth of additional features.

WINDOWS POWERSHELL.

Microsoft "Windows PowerShell":http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/technologies/management/powershell/default.mspx command line shell and scripting language helps IT professionals achieve greater control and productivity. Using a new admin-focused scripting language, more than 130 standard command line tools, and consistent syntax and utilities, Windows PowerShell allows IT professionals to more easily control system administration and accelerate automation. Windows PowerShell is easy to adopt, learn, and use, because it works with your existing IT infrastructure and existing script investments, and because it runs on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2003. Windows PowerShell is now included as part of Windows Server 2008 and can be evaluated in Windows Server 2008 Beta 3. Exchange Server 2007, System Center Operations Manager 2007, System Center Data Protection Manager V2, and System Center Virtual Machine Manager also leverage Windows PowerShell to improve administrator control, efficiency, and productivity. Unfortunately I won't be showing any examples or scripts just yet. I'm still playing with the bubble wrap so it'll be a few weeks or so until I really get stuck into it.

WEEKLY ODDSPOTS.

Two Israelis were walking along the street when one demanded a pet squirrel from the other. The second man refused to surrender his pet. Later he received a call - hand over your squirrel or your house will be burnt down. Fearing arson, the man agreed to hand over his squirrel. The two met and fought and the second man fled. Later his motorcycle was torched. A German bricklayer, who accused his girlfriend of liking her pet guinea pig more than him, killed the pet and turned it into a "romantic" dinner for two. The 23-year-old only found out what had happened when she went to feed her beloved pet Rudi after the candle-lit meal.

RUDE AWAKENING.

Optimus Prime is "brought back to life":http://youtube.com/watch?v=bq1_6D9QS9Y in the year 2006 to find that many things have changed since his death.

BIG BROTHER.

She doesn't drive or play video games, but former _Big Brother_ contestant Krystal Forscutt has been chosen as one of two females to feature in the "new Need For Speed racing game":http://www.theage.com.au/news/games/housemates-racy-game-role/2007/06/07/1181089215697.html, ProStreet. Forscutt, who since leaving the Big Brother house last year has modelled for men's magazines and appeared on celebrity singing show _It Takes Two_, will play a "flag girl" in the popular street racing title. ProStreet, which is set for worldwide release in spring, will be available on virtually all gaming platforms, and Forscutt is relishing her shot at international exposure.

UNOBTRUSIVE JAVASCRIPT.

Rails is a great framework, especially for writing AJAX applications, but the JavaScript that the built-in Rails helpers output is a bone of contention for many. "Unobtrusive JavaScript":http://www.ujs4rails.com/ for Rails aims to change that. UJS for Rails makes it easy to "apply behavior to your page":http://www.ujs4rails.com/resources/usage-documentation#define_using_css. Simply specify the element(s) of your page that you want the behaviour to apply to using CSS-style selectors and the event that you want to trigger the behavior, and the JavaScript that you want to run. In addition, you can write your behaviors using RJS-style Ruby to JavaScript proxies. If you need to "retrofit an existing application":http://www.ujs4rails.com/resources/usage-documentation#rails_helpers with unobtrusive behaviour or you are used to using the Rails JavaScript Helpers then that's not a problem. UJS for Rails has upgraded the Rails JavaScript Helpers so they apply their JavaScript unobtrusively. Simply work the same way you always have done and UJS for Rails will handle it for you. JS for Rails comes with its own "range of helpers":http://www.ujs4rails.com/resources/usage-documentation#scriptaculous for use with the built-in apply_behaviour function. Now you can easily make unobtrusive sortable lists, draggable elements, in-place editors and much more! All of the UJS helpers automatically apply the necessary behaviors required for the effect you want to achieve - no more ugly inline JavaScript clogging up your XHTML! As well as specifying the behaviour as a JavaScript string you can use a block to write RJS-style code. The block takes three optional arguments, page (which works the same as page in RJS templates), element and event. The event object is passed so you can call event.stop to prevent the default behaviour of the event:

apply_behaviour '.list_item:dblclick' do |page, element, 
     event|
  element.replace_html "Deleted." 
  event.stop
end

LOST.

"Lost Screencaps and Easter Eggs":http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/, bookmarked for next season. Which starts in February. In the meantime, you can listen to executive producer Damon Lindelof "whine about The Internet doing its job":http://www.eonline.com/gossip/kristin/detail/index.jsp?uuid=9c9aafc1-e118-4d0c-9686-6b982fbd4e87.

THE BLACK BOX.

Half-Life 2: "The Black Box":http://au.gamespot.com/pages/video_player/popup.php?sid=6170630&pid=932149 (Episode Two) Video Trailer!

HIGH POWER JOB.

"Video of the year!":http://www.glumbert.com/media/highpower Thanks to Benno for the link.

DISNEY HL2.

"Virtual tour of Disney's Tower of Terror created in _Half-Life 2_":http://www.thedisneyblog.com/tdb/2007/04/virtual_tower_o.html. The ghosts of five G-men shall haunt you the rest of your days.

AJAX REVIEW.

Dr. Dobb's Journal "reviews 5 AJAX frameworks":http://www.ddj.com/article/printableArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=EM3GMBLSO1VWQQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=199203087&dept_url=/dept/webservices/: Dojo 0.3.1, Prototype and Scriptaculous 1.4, Direct Web Reporting 1.0, Yahoo! User Interface Library 0.11.1 and Google Web Toolkit 1.0. Each framework was tested in two basic scenarios - writing a 'hub' (titled collapsible link list frequently seen on sidebars of many Web sites) and a 'tab panel' (horizontal tabbed navigation bar). During the process, Dr. Dobb's Journal reviewers noted that 'Dojo provides more features and HTML widgets than YUI and Prototype' but eventually 'settled on the Yahoo! User Interface Library.'

HMM, IE8.

At the Mix'07 conference in Las Vegas-Microsoft's annual event for web designers and developers-the spotlight has largely been on Microsoft's Silverlight platform, formerly known as Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere. Silverlight is a set of tools for developing rich, Flash-like web applications. Less talk has focused around the web browser that will provide the primary user interface for all this new technology. On the "Internet Explorer blog":http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/04/19/what-to-expect-from-ie-at-mix07, Chris Wilson hinted at some of the things that might be coming in IE 8, while declining to give specific details.

MAMEintosh.

!{float:left}http://gotnull.com/images/MAMEintosh.jpg(MAMEintosh.com)! "MAMEintosh":http://www.mameintosh.com is a resource for MAME enthusiasts looking for tips and tricks on how to build their own MAME arcade cabinet. The creator of the site is working towards converting the machine(s) into kit form so you can easily build your own without having to go to complete efforts of building from scratch! Something to also look forward to is a "second version":http://www.mameintosh.com/v2/ of the cabinet, which is in the works. It will be a cocktail style cabinet in a very neat and small form factor. MAMEintosh is powered by a G4 Macintosh running OSX and MacMAME. The machine in the cabinet is a Dual 500Mhz G4 PowerMac with 1.25GB RAM and an ATI Rage 128 Pro. Check out the "gallery of pictures":http://flickr.com/photos/creativebastard/sets/259511/ on "flickr.com":http://www.flickr.com.

TEXT READABILITY.

Wired magazine has an article that explains "The Law of Optical Volumes":http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/04/the_math_behind.html, a formula for spacing the letters on a printed page that results in maximum readability. Wired's new logo (did anyone notice?) obeys the law. Unfortunately, Web fonts don't allow custom kerning pairs, so you can't work the same magic online as in print. Could this be why some people still prefer newspapers and magazines to the Web?

LEGO RULES.

"Mechanized Brick":http://www.mechanizedbrick.com/mb.html: Custom LEGO kits for the military modeler. Since the majority of these kits seem to be sold out, you can instead purchase a CD with detailed schematics and assemble the bricks yourself.

BEEN BUSY.

I've been a busy bee. Busy means, I don't have time to post. Be patient kids.

COMMODORE GAMING!

Whether you are looking for an "extreme monster of a PC":http://www.commodoregaming.com/pcshop/Home.aspx to run the latest and most graphically intense games the industry has produced or are just getting your feet wet in PC gaming… the Commodore gaming PC range offers that and everything in between. These machines come packaged in a specially designed, heavy-duty yet stylish casing, capable of withstanding our revolutionary painting process. Choose from their library of artwork to personalise your high performance gaming PC and express your own taste and style.

JOKES ON YOU.

A driver is stuck in a traffic jam on the freeway. Nothing is moving. Suddenly a man knocks on the window. The driver rolls down his window and asks, "What's going on?" "Terrorists have kidnapped John Howard, Peter Costello, and Kim Beazley. They're asking for a $300 million ransom, otherwise they're going to douse them with petrol and set them on fire. We're going from car to car, taking up a collection." The driver asks, "How much is everyone giving, on average?" About a litre each.

GOT DVD?

Very "funny":http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/piracy2.jpg advert.

ELEGANT SOLUTION?

Writing local Web applications can be quick, easy, and efficient for solving specific Intranet problems. Learn why a Web browser is sometimes a better interface than a GUI application and why experienced Web developers find themselves struggling to learn a GUI toolkit, and descover that "a simple CGI script would serve their needs perfectly well":http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/web/library/wa-localwebsrv.html?ca=dgr-lnxw01CGI-Best, if not better.

IMPRESSIVE MAPS.

"Mapping the World By Heart":http://www.mapping.com/mapfiles.html: Samples of Student Maps

ANYBOTS.

"Anybots":http://anybots.com/, which is three guys led by Trevor Blackwell, has developed the first robot that walks like we do, by "dynamically balancing itself":http://paulgraham.com/anybots.html rather than being pre-programmed for walking like Asimo. The video shows the robot walking and being pushed by another 'bully' robot to demonstrate that it can't easily be pushed over.

BEATBOXING FLUTE.

"This guy":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crfrKqFp0Zg absolutely rocks! This guy "rocks":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZpD0btOZx8 too.

OBSESSION.

"Su27.de":http://www.su27.de/seite1.htm: One man's obsession with the "Soviet Sukhoi Su-27":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Su-27 fighter jet leads him to construct an incredibly detailed 1/6th scale model. The build process spans 72 pages of photographs, with captions in both Deutsch and English.

ASIMOV.

"The Last Question":http://infohost.nmt.edu/~mlindsey/asimov/question.htm, a short story by Isaac Asimov. Skip the author's italicized foreword, as even the vague comments therein are somewhat spoileriffic.

KRAFTWERK

A labor of love, many years in the making, "Astralwerks":http://www.astralwerks.com/8-bit/default.html is pleased to present a various artist covers compilation, featuring interpretations of classic Kraftwerk songs, arranged primarily on lo-bit handheld gaming devices, vintage video game consoles and obsolete 8 bit home computers, revered for the rich and distinctive sound of their lo-bit microchips.

HASTA LA VISTA?

"This is a concern":http://www.ntcompatible.com/Half_Life_2_c12740.html for me since it's my "all time favorite game":http://www.steampowered.com/v/index.php?area=game&AppId=380&cc=AU. I'm also trying to figure out whether or not I really want "Vista":http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/default.mspx as my operating system of choice. XP works perfectly fine for me, but the question is whether or not I really want to be using the next or worst best thing just because, well.. it's new?

BENDY PHONE.

According to CNET, who are out at 3GSM in Barcelona, Motorola has "unveiled a phone that bends":http://crave.cnet.co.uk/mobiles/0,39029453,49287677,00.htm in order to make putting it up to your face more comfortable. The Motorola Z8, as the bendy phone is called, runs on a Symbian based platform and also displays video at up to 30 frames per second.

MGS MOVIE!

"Just a couple of days ago":http://pspupdates.qj.net/More-details-on-the-Metal-Gear-Solid-movie/pg/49/aid/82213, "Yair Landau":http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/yair-landau/12744 announced that "Sony":http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/sony/880 Pictures is working on the "Metal Gear Solid movie":http://pspupdates.qj.net/category/Metal-Gear-Solid-Portable-Ops/cid/1773. Now to support that is a report from "Hollywood Reporter":http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/hollywood-reporter/11888 about "Columbia":http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/columbia/618 Pictures is currently negotiating getting the rights to MGS. Don't get confused. Columbia Pictures is owned by "Sony Pictures":http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/sony-pictures/6547 Entertainment. Anyway, Michael De Luca will be producing and "Hideo Kojima":http://pspupdates.qj.net/tags/hideo-kojima/449 himself will act as executive producer for the movie. The production team also includes Sony's Doug Belgrad and Sam Dickerman, Josh Bratman (who introduced the project to the company), and Rick Privman of JEA will also executive produce. As the MGS series have spawned numerous merchandise (comic books, action figures, and guides), it's really no surprise that the movie would be most anticipated. The only thing we have to think about now is when will the movie be released. And the bigger question... Who will play "Solid Snake":http://ps3.qj.net/Metal-Gear-Solid-is-ready-for-Hollywood/pg/49/aid/32442?

SHOCK NEW LOOK.

!{float:left}http://gotnull.com/images/car_photo_212758_7.png(2008 STi)! These images reveal the "forthcoming Impreza":http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/news/autoexpressnews/205057/subaru_impreza.html, two months before the car makes its official world debut at the New York Motor Show in April. As the images reveal, the changes are significant, and the styling sees an unparalleled reinvention of the firm's most important model. Perhaps most striking is the fact that the UK version of the Impreza is no longer a saloon. British drivers will be offered only a five-door hatchback when the new car arrives in showrooms in October.

COOL STUFF.

!{float:left}http://gotnull.com/images/darklyinterview-1.jpg(A Scanner Darkly)! "Imitating A Scanner Darkly":http://www.illustratortechniques.com/imitating-a-scanner-darkly.html, an Adobe Illustrator tutorial on photo manipulation, by one of the animators of said film. Using vectors is beneficial because each frame has hundreds of marks on it and files stay small. Also, vectors can be blown up infinitely, making a transfer to the big screen possible. The movies about n undercover cop in a not-too-distant future who becomes involved with a dangerous new drug and begins to lose his own identity as a result. "Perler Bead Crafts":http://flickr.com/photos/34152900@N00/sets/1686827/: Nintendo's pixellated superstars, rendered via thermofusible bead construction.

AMIGA RULES.

The idea of "Speedrun" movies has been know to many retro gaming fans for a long time. I remember trying to search on the Internet everywhere and could not find one single speed recording of an Amiga game, which is sad. That's why "this website":http://recordedamigagames.ath.cx/modules/news2/ is great! After searching on "YouTube":http://www.youtube.com/ I also found "this link":http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=cubex55.

WII ROBOT.

WiiBot is the pet project of two engineers who apparently have way too much cool hardware and time on their hands. These two guys figure that as long as you have a Kuka KR16 industrial robot to work with, why not see if you can control it with the Wii Remote? The result is a tennis-playing, sword-wielding mechanical arm that simultaneously captures 'weekend of nerdy fun' and 'accident waiting to happen' in a fun "two minute video":http://www.usmechatronics.com/usmgarage/WiiBot.html. The website even details the technical aspects of teaching a robot to parry.

SPY GAME.

Woohoo! my "favorite movie":http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB46EAjtgwo is on right now. That's what I'm talking' about! Oh yeah and I also found this Spy Game script "here":http://www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/s/spy-game-script-transcript-pitt.html for all you quotes spouting fans of the movie. The script is a transcript that was painstakingly transcribed using the screenplay and/or viewings of "Spy Game":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0266987/.

EYES IN THE SKY HUMOUR.

If a couple of undergraduate pranks unearthed in Britain are anything to go by, maybe it's just as well that Google's Australia Day aerial photo opportunity "didn't go to plan":http://www.theage.com.au/news/web/google-spots--crap-circles/2007/02/01/1169919445548.html. British media has been reporting a rash of rude and crude sightings around the country both on "Google Maps":http://maps.google.com/ and the Microsoft equivalent, "Virtual Earth":http://maps.live.com/.

BYE BYE FLOPPIES.

Those of us who have been in the IT arena for a while remember installing our favorite OS, network client, power application, etc. by feeding the computer what seemed an endless supply of 5.25" soft floppy disks. We rejoiced when the hard 3.5" floppies came out, cutting our install media by 1/3. We practically did backflips when the data CD-ROM arrived and we declared: we will never need any other disk than this! It is with sadness that I report the beginning of the end for the floppy: computer giant PC World has announced it "will no longer carry the floppy disk":http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/6314251.stm once current supplies run out.

UH, SCARY STUFF.

Apollo 11 is the mission that put man on the moon. About half-way into the trip, the astronauts spotted "a strange object":http://youtube.com/watch?v=bQgfaLFTl4U. Buzz Aldrin talks about what they did and having to hide it from NASA to stop any panic. The UFO was never determined.

SHA WHO?

In light of "recent attacks on SHA-1":http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/01/20/1936257.shtml?tid=172, NIST is preparing for a "competition to augment and revise the current Secure Hash Standard":http://www.full-disk-encryption.net/nist_hash.html. The public competition will be run much like the development process for the Advance Encryption Standard, and is expected to take 3 years. As a first step, NIST is publishing draft minimum acceptability requirements, submission requirements, and evaluation criteria for candidate algorithms, and requests public comment by April 27, 2007. NIST has ordered Federal agencies to stop using SHA-1 and instead to use the SHA-2 family of hash functions. The security of a given hash/encryption would seem to be a function of how much effort has gone into breaking it. Lots of algorithms can look good on paper, but until people really tear into the math and code, it's true level of unbreakability is undecidable. A 3 year competition is not likely to bring enough IQ, theorems, malevolence, or brute CPU cycles to bear against any candidate. The point is that any attempt to quickly create a new algorithm is likely to create an insecure one. Shouldn't we be trying to create candidate algorithms for the year 2050 to give the algorithms time to withstand attack? Or do we plan to keep creating new algorithms as a serial security-by-obscurity strategy.

XPATH CHECKER.

"XPath Checker":https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1095/ is a Firefox Extension "Brian Slesinsky":http://slesinsky.org/brian/ wrote for testing XPath expressions interactively. You might find it useful if you use xpaths or want to learn how. If you haven't used xpaths before, they are sort of like regular expressions for web pages. XPaths make it easy to extract content from deeply nested markup in a web page or an XML document. Great for unit-testing code that generates XML or HTML. They're also used in XSLT and by Firefox extensions such as "Greasemonkey":http://greasemonkey.mozdev.org/.

THE PHANTOM HOURGLASS.

!{float:left}http://gotnull.com/images/phantom_zelda.jpg(The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass)! Based on what I've read, "The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass":http://au.gamespot.com/ds/adventure/thelegendofzeldads/index.html is heading in the right direction. The games mechanics are fresh and work well with the "visuals":http://au.gamespot.com/ds/adventure/thelegendofzeldads/screenindex.html. I'm curious to see just what's happening in terms of story, as the game is basically a follow-up to the "Wind Waker":http://au.gamespot.com/gamecube/adventure/legendofzeldathewindwaker/index.html?q=windwaker. If the quest in Phantom Hourglass is comparable to the console Zelda adventures, then the DS title will most certainly rock the house! The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass is controlled almost entirely by the stylus. Using the touch screen, players direct Link's movements and attacks: A sweeping motion triggers Link's spin attack and tapping characters makes Link speak with them. The stylus controls offer a more intuitive means of playing the game and open up new possibilities for puzzle solving. What's really cool is that the player can inspect the map on the touch screen and make notes using the stylus. The notes on these maps are saved for review on the top screen during game play. Players use the map to chart courses for their ships, too. Using the stylus to draw a path through the islands, players set their ships' courses. Then, as the ships automatically follow the paths drawn, players can control their ships' cannons to target oncoming enemies. I can't wait until this game comes out sometime in *Q2 2007* according to "Gamespot":http://www.gamespot.com.

CISCO SUE APPLE.

Here we go. Cisco is suing Apple Inc. over "iPhone":http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iPhone trademark violations. They wrote a release stating "they were expecting an official agreement yesterday":http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/cellphones/cisco-is-expecting-signed-agreement-on-iphone-trademark-today-227504.php. But apparently they haven't. It appears that "iPhoneygate":http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/iPhoneygate rears its head once more.

DISTANT STARS.

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that a University of B.C. astronomer recently used NASA's Hubble telescope to see a cluster of stars one billion light-years from Earth, the "farthest stars ever observed":http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=0fb0cc1f-f73e-4e7c-82b1-6134482a48a5&k=1725 from Earth.

That's interesting, he explains, because given that light travels at a finite speed -- 300,000 km a second - the light emitted from the star cluster he and Kalirai saw was emitted one billion years ago. That means the cluster as it appeared to them two months ago was the way it looked one billion years ago. In other words, they were looking one billion years back in time.

AJAX OUCH.

!{float:left}http://gotnull.com/images/promo_orangeforce.jpg(Ajax spray)! Security lists are abuzz about a presentation from the "23C3":http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Home conference, which details "a fundamental design flaw in Javascript":http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/events/1602.en.html. The technique, called Prototype Hijacking, allows an attacker to redefine any feature of Javascript. The paper is called '"Subverting AJAX":http://events.ccc.de/congress/2006/Fahrplan/attachments/1158-Subverting_Ajax.pdf' (pdf), and outlines a possible Web Worm that lives in the very fabric of Web 2.0 and could kill the Web as we know it. The following code example could allow an attacker to modify any native attribute values or application behaviour, by using defineSetter and defineGetter methods.

XMLHttpRequest.prototype.__defineSetter__(
	"multipart",function (h){ // Hijacked multipart
		this.xml.multipart=h
		sniff("multipart: "+" "+h);
		return h;
});

XMLHttpRequest.prototype.__defineGetter__(
	'status",function (){ // Hijacked status
		h=this.xml.status ;
		sniff("status: "+" "+h);
		return h;
});

Actually, by using this attack technique, a malicious user could modify or inject requests and responses by using some specifically crafted functions in a transparent way to the user and to the underneath application.

YOUTUBE BLOCKED IN BRAZIL.

The popular video sharing site "YouTube is now blocked in Brazil":http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/northern_california/16395158.htm due to a local court decision last Thursday. The site was ordered to block the uploaded sex videos of Brazilian media starlet Daniela Cicarelli and, although it complied, many users kept re-uploading it to the site. After the failure of YouTube to keep the video off of the site, the domain was blocked nationwide at a DNS level. Predictably, many Brazilians are annoyed and I've started to receive even SPAMs protesting on this blocking. From the article: 'The case now goes automatically to a three-member panel of judges who will decide whether to make the order permanent and whether to fine YouTube as much as US$119,000 (euro91,000) for each day the video was viewable, said Rubens Decousseau Tilkian.'

LAGUNA BEACH.

This program could be an ingenious strategic weapon, were it created by terrorists to facilitate the eventual disintegration of the moral fabric of America. "Laguna Beach" and its ugly sister show, "The Hills" comprise a layer of bile accumulated atop an age of media diarrhea that is severely damaging the values system of a generation of kids. The mere concept of delivering "fabricated reality" to a youth demographic before they are adequately media-literate and intellectually equipped to make such a critical distinction presents a set of truly frightening possibilities and the fact that it's justified as mindless, harmless fun is arguably the most cynical and insidious part of it. The fallout is that we're going to see a lot of severe depression and a marked lack of ambition in the forthcoming generation, when the crushing blow of reality takes hold - a reality in which their media-fed perceptions of automatic entitlement to celebrity and wealth are challenged. Were I a parent, I would honestly consider putting a content filter on Channel 10 so as to spare my kids the surgery-free frontal lobotomy provided by this type of content. In fact, I would sooner buy my kids gold copies of Spice Girls DVD's than let them watch this fucking crap.

MY LITTLE FRIEND.

!{float:left}http://gotnull.com/images/scarface.jpg(Scarface game)! Hey, remember the movie "_Scarface_":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086250/? How about that ending, with Tony Montana taking on an army of thugs with his "little friend" and managing to kill most of them...except for the guy creeping up from behind with a double-barreled shotgun? Guess he didn't see that coming. Too bad they didn't leave it open for a sequel, because the continuing adventures of Tony Montana probably would have been pretty cool. Coke deals and other character interactions are often governed by a golflike meter. Slight variations on that conversation have probably happened thousands of times since the 1983 release of _Scarface_, which featured Al Pacino as a tough-talking up-and-coming crime lord who makes a fortune dealing cocaine in Miami, only to lose it all by taking his eye off the ball and becoming way too focused on getting high on his own supply. Through the power of video game magic, Sierra and Radical Entertainment have teamed up to answer the question: What would have happened to Tony Montana if he had escaped from the mansion? What about his empire? And the video game answer to that question is that he'd lose it all and have to perform a number of Grand Theft Auto-like tasks to get it back. Gamespot have "given it":http://au.gamespot.com/pc/action/scarface/review.html a 6.0! Do they know who they're dealing with? People will die over that rating.

INVENT THIS.

Weapons patents can sound dead serious, dead ridiculous or both at once. One of this years most discussed suggestions was for "bullets that required a password":http://www.newscientist.com/blog/invention/2006/06/password-protected-bullets.html before the handgun could fire. Another patent took a different approach to gun safety. The "'I've-been-shot gun'":http://www.newscientist.com/blog/invention/2006/03/gun-ive-been-shot.html would aid policemen or soldiers by connecting wirelessly and informing HQ when and where it has been fired. But why not do away with bullets altogether? According to two inventors from Albuquerque, US, it is possible to "construct an energy weapon":http://www.newscientist.com/blog/invention/2006/10/microwave-oven-gun.html from a stack of components taken from ordinary household microwave ovens.

NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

While the Wikipedia entry on "Shuttle Carrier Aircraft":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Carrier_Aircraft is interesting in its own right, I'm somewhat disturbed by "this photo of the mounting apparatus":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Shuttle_mounting_point.JPG. Identifying the correct orientation of the shuttle seems like a task that shouldn't require a, uhh, rocket scientist.

YOUTUBE SOLD FOR $2.2 BILLION.

"Google":http://www.google.com/ acquired "YouTube":http://youtube.com/ today for $2.2 billion which will see Google take a 70% share of online video. Not bad for a company which is just 18 months from conception and has yet to turn a profit. With "MySpace":http://www.myspace.com/ being purchased last year by "Rupert Murdoch":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch for around $800 million and now being valued between $12 and $15 billion it really looks like ‘Tech Boom 2.0’ has just rolled around. I’m guessing that the next big acquisition to take place will be "Digg":http://digg.com/, of course the price won’t be anywhere as high but it will still make "Kevin Rose":http://digg.com/about/kevin the founder a few hundred million.

PAGINATION.

Finally figured out how to get pagination working.

def list
    @post_pages, @posts = paginate :post, 
        :per_page => 10, :order => 'created_at desc'
end

Works like a charm!

BOXING DAY.

In common usage, when 26 December falls on a Sunday, this is now referred to as Boxing Day despite Boxing Day officially occurring on 27 December. In the latter half of the twentieth century in the United Kingdom, when 26 December was a Sunday it was referred to as Christmas Sunday, and "Boxing Day" in popular usage referred to the 27th. In some Commonwealth countries, fixed-date holidays falling on Saturday or Sunday are often observed on the next weekday, so if Boxing Day falls on a Saturday then Monday 28 December is a public holiday; in the UK and other countries this is accomplished by Royal Proclamation. If Christmas Day falls on a Saturday itself then the Boxing Day holiday is automatically on the following Monday, and no Royal Proclamation is required. In such a circumstance, a 'substitute bank holiday in lieu of Christmas Day' is declared for Tuesday 28 December, this being the next available working day - thus the Boxing Day holiday occurs before the substitute Christmas holiday. Honestly, who gives a shit. It's a holiday regardless and enjoy it while it lasts. That's what I'm gonna do.

MERRY XMAS. HAPPY NEW YEAR.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year every body. I remember when I was much younger I'd want nothing but Transformers from Santa. So I thought this would be a good time to post the new "HD trailer":http://63.250.192.42/b02r01/012/yahoomovies/2/31652162.mov?StreamID=31652162&pl_b=00448ED8ED1813327B2DB4D3A245899533&CG_ID=1540534 for the forthcoming _Transformers_ movie. It contains a textual reference in one shot to "Sector Seven Org" and the string "takara83". Going to "sectorseven.org":http://www.sectorseven.org/ and entering "takara83" into the text box launches a Flash interface with oblique shiz about events leading up to the movie. "ARG":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_Reality_Game? One cannot say. The movie is being produced by Dreamworks, though, who were responsible for The Beast. Looks like it's gonna be an absolutely beautiful movie. With help from Steven Spielberg - need I say more kids?

RUBY GOODNESS.

This is one of the countless amounts of reasons why I absolutely love "Ruby":http://www.ruby-lang.org/en. We're in a loop, right?

unless post.created_at < 1.week.ago
	do something to posts earlier than a week old
else
	display all posts
end

Can it possibly get any easier than that!? You gotta _*love*_ it!

CSS SHORTHAND.

"CSS Shorthand Guide":http://www.dustindiaz.com/css-shorthand/, a handy resource for simplifying your styles. *Background* Backgrounds can be tricky. Nevertheless, effective when condensed correctly. The syntax for declaring the background shorthand values are as follows:

element {
  background-color: color || #hex || (rgb/% || 0-255);
  background-image:url(URI);
  background-repeat: repeat || repeat-x ||
        repeat-y || no-repeat;
  background-position: X Y || (top||bottom||center) 
        (left||right||center);
  background-attachment: scroll || fixed;
}

Believe it or not, all these properties can be combined into one single background property as follows:

element {
  background:
    #fff
    url(image.png)
    no-repeat
    20px 100px
    fixed;
}

Now that's shorthand!

RUBIK'S CUBE MADNESS.

"Upscale Rubik's Cube":http://www.zontikgames.com/parlour_games/rubiks_cube, made entirely from chrome with inlaid leather panels. Do not buy this for anyone known to tear apart their Rubik's Cube when solving it properly proves too frustrating. That said, a true connoisseur would fashion their cube from pure platinum and precious/semi-precious stones.

HL2 HEADCRAB HAT!

This holiday season, give the gift that lasts forever: "an official Valve Software Headcrab Hat":http://store.valvesoftware.com/productshowcase/productshowcase_HL2HeadCrabHat.html.

QUANTUM COMPUTING.

Even for the crazy world of quantum mechanics, this one is twisted. A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running. The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a "superposition", a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run". With the right set-up, the theory suggested, the computer would sometimes get an answer out of the computer even though the program did not run. And now researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have improved on the original design and built a non-running quantum computer that really works. They send a photon into a system of mirrors and other optical devices, which included a set of components that run a simple database search by changing the properties of the photon. The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program's components - so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through. I don't know whether this is amazing or simply just confusing to say the least.

OH NO, NOT AGAIN.

Another vulnerability has been discovered in the CGI library (cgi.rb) that ships with Ruby which could be used by a malicious user to create a denial of service attack (DoS). A specific HTTP request for any web application using cgi.rb causes CPU consumption on the machine on which the web application is running. Many such requests result in a denial of service.

PHOTOS.

I've created an "online gallery":http://209.200.127.39/gallery/index.asp?id=1 and added some miscellaneous photos in there. It's still a work in progress.

WINDOWS VISTA.

Information Week reports that a spoofed server has been released that can be "used to activate Microsoft's Vista Enterprise versions":http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=196602710&subSection=Breaking+News. It is being made available on several pirate Web sites and spoofs a Key Management Service server, used to activate a large number of copies of Windows Vista in enterprise environments. Vista is the first version of Windows that Microsoft requires volume license customers to activate. Besides KMS, the Redmond, Wash. developer also offers Multiple Activation Key, which resembles the retail version's activation process. PC's activated using KMS must reactivate at least once every six months. The MelindaGates hack uses a VMware image of a KMS server to activate - and keep activated - a pirated edition of Windows Vista Business. I like this.. honestly, I'm going to laugh my ass off 6 months down the road when MS pushes out a mandatory WGA update, disguised as another 'critical update,' that nukes pirated installs. All these scam cracked/KMS/pirated Vista copies are going to lock-up, shut down and only be able to do one thing, display the phone number to call MS to purchase a legitimate key. Pirates have gotten by the initial flaws in the authentication system. Microsoft is going to change it, and quietly force everybody to reactivate from a legitimate source. Just wait... it's coming. If you really need a free, modern OS, rather than run something that clings to functionality through hacks, cheats, cracks and work-arounds, why not just bite the bullet and download a good desktop Linux distro? It's free. It's arguably more capable than Vista. How/where/when you play your media isn't decided by the AAs and to top it all off, you don't have to hack/crack/scam to get it to run.

CGI VULNERABILITY.

A vulnerability has been discovered in the CGI library (cgi.rb) that ships with Ruby which could be used by a malicious user to create a denial of service attack (DoS). The problem is triggered by sending the library an HTTP request that uses multi part MIME encoding and has an invalid boundary specifier that begins with - instead of --. Once triggered it will exhaust all available memory resources effectively creating a DoS condition. *Ruby 1.8.5 and all prior versions are vulnerable.*

THE QUANTUM.

If successful scientific theories can be thought of as cures for stubborn problems, quantum physics was the wonder drug of the 20th century. It successfully explained phenomena such as *radioactivity* and *antimatter*, and no other theory can match its description of how light and particles *behave on small scales*. But it can also be mind-bending. Quantum objects can exist in multiple states and places at the same time, requiring a mastery of statistics to describe them. Rife with uncertainty and *riddled with paradoxes*, the theory has been criticised for casting doubt on the notion of an objective reality - a concept many physicists, including *Albert Einstein*, have found hard to swallow. I'm reading a book by "John Gribbin":http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/103-8744377-5025408?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=john+gribbin&Go.x=0&Go.y=0&Go=Go called "In Search of Schrodinger's Cat":http://www.amazon.com/Search-Schrodingers-Cat-Quantum-Physics/dp/0553342533/sr=8-2/qid=1163325567/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/103-8744377-5025408?ie=UTF8&s=books. So it's all about Quantum Physics and reality. Absolutely amazing introduction to the strange world of the quantum - an essential element in understanding today's world.

FLEXIBILITY.

Ruby is seen as a flexible language, since it allows its users to freely alter its parts. Essential parts of Ruby can be removed or redefined, at will. Existing parts can be added upon. Ruby tries not to restrict the coder. For example, addition is performed with the plus (+) operator. But, if you’d rather use the readable word plus, you could add such a method to Ruby’s built in Numeric class.

class Numeric
  def plus(x)
    self.+(x)
  end
end

y = 5.plus 6
# y is now equal to 11

Ruby’s operators are syntactic sugar for methods. You can redefine them as well.

DIRTY GOBLIN OF A HACK.

This is a dirty trick, it’s so dirty that I feel bad and wrong for even mentioning it but JavaScript just makes me do these things. It’s not my fault….I’m not in control here. You know when you are trying to work with the arguments array but you realise that it’s not really an array so it doesn’t have all those good methods like slice(), concat() etc. Well, there’s a way around that but it’s not pretty. You see, JavaScript methods aren’t in anyway tightly bound to their object like in many other languages. If you like a method that another object has you can just steal it. In the case above, we like that slice() method that arrays have, let’s just steal it:

[].slice.call(arguments, 1);

Ha! We created an empty array just to steal its slice() method then use call() to point this at the arguments array! And you know what? It works rather nicely on quite a lot of objects and methods. Go on, have a play…

PORTAL.

Portal is an upcoming single-player puzzle game by "Valve Corporation":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valve_Corporation, shipping with "Half-Life 2: Episode Two":http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2:_Episode_Two, which is due to be released Q1 2007. Game play revolves around the "Aperture Science Hand held Portal Device" (ASHPD), a hand held device that can create portals, allowing instant travel and a visual and physical connection between any two different locations in 3D space. Portals are restricted to horizontal and vertical planes, but if two linked portals are on different planes, bizarre twists in geometry and gravity can occur, such as the player walking through a portal on the wall and "falling" up out of the floor several feet behind where he started. Only two portals may be open at a time. If a new portal is created, it replaces the previous portal of the same color. The device also acts as a less powerful version of Half-Life 2's gravity gun, which can grab and hold objects, though it is unclear whether or not it is able to 'punt' objects as the Gravity Gun can. Here's a game play scenario: In other situations, you may be under fire by a gun droid. So all you need to do is shoot a portal open over the gun, then shoot a portal open beneath a crate, then watch the crate fall through the hole and crush the gun. It gets even crazier, and the diagrams shown in the trailer showed some incredibly crazy things that you can attempt, like creating a series of Portals so that you're constantly chasing yourself.

THE DA VINCI CODE.

So, it was finally released on DVD. Wasn't as much hype as I though it was when I saw it at the movies. Nothing at all compared to the novel. However, I felt as if I had to get it on DVD though. Just well, because I own every Dan Brown book released and why not own the movie as well.

THE FIRST INSTANCE.

So, I finally got this all _working_. As you can see there's a new web page here and everything is built with "Ruby on Rails":http://www.ruby-lang.org/en framework. I'll try and keep this place as up-to-date as possible.