Monthly Archives: November 2005

If I had to choose…

November 27, 2005 – 12:41 am

… my favorite day out of the year, it would probably be the Saturday after Thanksgiving.

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And another review

November 26, 2005 – 11:20 am

We ate at Cafe Bariloche last night after the movie, and it was really good. It’s a South American place on the corner on Main St. right across from the theater.

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Good night, and Good Luck

November 26, 2005 – 11:17 am

We saw this excellent movie last night; this is a definite DVD buy for me (and I almost never buy DVDs).

This is a must see movie in a time where Americans are being labeled as “unpatriotic” and even traitorous by some, just for criticising the methods by which some in the government are “fighting terror”.

Even if you’re not into that angle, the cinematography was really cool too; they used a lot of 50’s-ish camera angles, etc., and a lot of original footage blended in as part of the movie. For instance, they didn’t have an actor for McCarthy - all his appearances were actual footage of him from back then.

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Cool moon time lapse picture

November 23, 2005 – 9:14 pm

At the Astronomy Picture of the Day site.

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My son, the programmer

November 23, 2005 – 1:09 am

So yesterday, Christian asks me if I’ve got any programming books he can read. “What kind?”, I ask. “C”, he says. “Why?”, I say.

A while ago he downloaded this RPG maker application that let’s him make his own RPG games, but now he wants to take it to the next level and actually start programming his own stuff. He looked around in the message boards and the consensus he gathered was that C (or C++) is the language of choice for games.

I warned him that C may be a bit much to bite off for his first attempt, especially trying to program a game, but he told me that the people on the message boards said it was “pretty basic”. I had to take a brief moment to re-explain the principle that 90% of what you read on message boards is pure crap, while at the same time resisting the urge to make a programmers-only joke reference about how I do think C-syntax is pretty compared to the more unstructured basic-style syntax (get it? - “pretty basic”).

Anyway, he did really want to check it out, and since he’s basically a genius, who am I to underestimate what he can handle? So, I pulled a dusty old three inch think C/C++ book down from the garage atic (where C books belong) and let him go to it. After about an hour, he brought it back to me and asked me if I had any easier suggestions to get him started.

I suggested that since he has also been talking about learning how to build web sites, that he should try learning HTML first, since it really is “pretty basic”, and I have no doubt that he can fully grasp it. So, I ended up buying him an HTML book tonight that looks pretty good. I had to thumb through a couple at B&N and disqualify them for doing things like mentioning the <font> tag, or teaching the table-grid layout technique that was OK for 90’s “dot com”ers, but is now most certainly obsolete (or should be - unfortunately it’s still pretty widespread). In the end, I found one that’s pretty good, and it teaches them from the ground up using a text editor, the way HTML should be coded - no lame WYSIWYG stuff.

The funny thing is that Martha told me that he ended up picking up the C++ book again during the day today while I was gone, so who knows, maybe he’ll still get into that too. I used to have an entry level Java book around somewhere, but I think I lent it to someone a long time ago and then forgot who.

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Drive-thru coffee

November 17, 2005 – 2:33 pm

It’s kind of sad that this is worth mentioning to me, but there are now two drive-thru Starbucks nearby (or at least semi-on-my-way to work): Channel Islands & Rose and Saviers & Channel Islands. Before this, I think the nearest one with a drive-thru was the Fillmore one.

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Checking one off the to-do list

November 17, 2005 – 12:13 am

Man it feels good to get this done, since it’s been so long. Among the other personal (as in non-paid) development projects on my long list of stuff that’s been sitting on the back burner lately, this one has probably been waiting the longest (or at least a close tie with the Pacific Design Printing web site).

I really miss doing WordPress development too; it seems like forever since I’ve had a chance to work on that stuff. I guess the blogging community can probably live without me for a little while longer though. I do have some really cool ideas (at least I think so), so keep your eyes peeled for stuff as soon as I finish up the busy period I’m currently in with the project I actually have to do because I get paid for it.

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Kiosk Browser 1.o

November 17, 2005 – 12:13 am

The first “complete” release of my Kiosk Browser application is now ready to be used.

As before, I’m really curious if any of you “security minded” individuals out there can help me think of ways to break this. The basic concept is to allow a computer to be used in a public space for only surfing a limited set of pages and nothing else. There is the assumption that the box itself is locked up, so only the keyboard, mouse, and video is physically available to the user.

I’ve put in a lot of features that are designed to keep the user from doing anything on the system other than surfing the allowed pages within the browser. Some notable highlights include:

  • Password required to close the browser
  • Limiting browser navigation based on a set of allowed DNS names, as well as pattern restrictions applied to the URL
  • Disabling CTRL+ALT+DEL and other key combinations that would normally allow an application to be closed or switched
  • Disabling a lot of standard browser functions (right-click, etc)
  • Automatically killing any new windows opened
  • The ability to load in a completely separate desktop
  • The ability to run the browser from the login screen, *without requiring (or allowing) any user to be logged in*.

As I said before, feel free to hammer on it or just theorize about how it may be possible to circumvent these restrictions, so that I will be able to counter any such measures effectively. I think it’s pretty solid right now, but it’s always possible that I’m overlooking something else.

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Tip about lying

November 14, 2005 – 12:22 pm

It appears that the White House still hasn’t learned that it’s probably not a good idea to lie about things when there is extensively recorded evidence to disprove what you’re saying.

The White House has been accused of trying to rewrite history after requesting Congressional Quarterly and the Federal News Service to alter the transcript to a October 31 press briefing. Both news agencies reported White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan responded to a question about the CIA leak case by saying “that’s accurate.” But the White House insists he said, “I don’t think that’s accurate.” So far both Congressional Quarterly and the Federal News Services have refused to change their transcripts but the White House website now claims McClellan said “I don’t think that’s accurate.” - Excerpt from today’s Democracy Now program

In case you want to hear for yourselves, I’ve made a short MP3 excerpt of the portion of the hearings that is in question. Anyone who can listen to this audio and claim (with a straight face) that he said “I don’t think that’s accurate” probably deserves even less than the plummeting 36% approval rating they currently have.

I realize that it was probably a slip of the tongue, since the press secretary would probably never consciously admit that the statement was accurate (even if he thought it was), but why not just say that? Why not just say “he meant to say…”, instead of trying to claim that he actually did say something he obviously didn’t. What’s the point of lying about something that everyone can easily see is false because there is obviously going to be recorded evidence, since there’s a room full of reporters present?

In the end, I’m not really sure what’s more sad, the fact that they’re lying about this, or the probability that a lot of the supporters of the administration don’t care and will likely ignore it.

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As if Sony wasn’t in enough trouble already

November 13, 2005 – 5:22 pm

From De Winter Information Solutions:

The spyware that Sony installs on the computers of music fans does not even seem to be correct in terms of copyright law.

It turns out that the rootkit contains pieces of code that are identical to LAME, an open source mp3-encoder, and thereby breach the license.
This software is licensed under the so called Lesser Gnu Public License (LGPL). According to this license Sony must comply with a couple of demands. Amongst others, they have to indicate in a copyright notice that they make use of the software. The company must also deliver the source code to the open-source libraries or otherwise make these available. And finally, they must deliver or otherwise make available the in between form between source code and executable code, the so called objectfiles, with which others can make comparable software.

Sony complied with non of these demands, but delivered just an executable program.

It’s funny how Sony claims to be installing (and hiding) this software on people’s computers in order to protect against copyright infringement, but the very applications that they are using to do so violate this principle.

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