Monthly Archives: January 2005

HomeSeries Net-Box

In a previous post I talked about my desire for a digital homestead, an appliance which you could use to create your own persistant network presence. Ideally it would be a small, inexpensive and robust box that would provide flexible web services, probably ssh, email, and a bunch of other cool and useful things.

Well, one company seems to have gotten the idea: Axentra :: HomeSeries Net-Box. The only problem is that it costs as much as a Mac mini and weighs about 4 times as much. Yes, you are paying for the software, but I’m not sure I really want a closed system for a box like this. I want something that costs as much as an Xbox.

Still, interesting.

All-In-One Podcasting Device For About $25 That My Mom Could Use

Over at The Social Customer Manifesto, they have a cute hack. Basically, he buys a simple $25 mp3 player that also looks like a thumb drive. He copies Doppler to it, and sets it to autorun so that when he plugs the MP3 player into his laptop, it automatically runs Doppler and copies new files to player. Neat! Check it out.

Addendum: does anyone know why Doppler insists on doing so many HEAD requests?

Blog vs. Audioblog

Try comparing this blog entry with the audioblog that I mentioned yesterday. Same event, different media, different impressions. Thanks Wil!

Addendum: Perhaps I should expand on why I think this is interesting. Some people have claimed that audioblogs are a waste of time because of their many “disadvantages” compared to the written word. Yes, the written word is more compact, can be composed with simpler equipment, and generally allows for more thoughtful, precise description of events and feelings. On the other hand, recordings of speech can convey immediacy, informality, intensity and emotion in a very real way. Wil presented two different versions of the same event. Which is better? Which is more powerful? I think they give different aspects of the same event. I find both compelling.

On Crime Dramas…

I watch a fair number of crime drama shows. Early on, I really liked CSI. It had some fairly interesting characters, and tried to present some interesting bits of forensics in a stylized dramatic way. But now that it has branched off into three different shows, it simply makes me wince.

The problem is a basic one of belivability. Yes, it’s just a TV show, I understand. But it has to be even roughly plausible or the sense of drama is destroyed. It is supposed to tease you with its plausibility, not surprise you with its absurdity.

For instance, in CSI they’ve taken to using various kinds of image manipulation to find out key bits of evidence. The simple fact is that the kind of image manipulation they do is impossible. You can’t pull an image of someone’s face reflecting in someone’s eye from a security camera image from a distance of thirty feet, or even five feet. It simply can’t be done. There is not 45% overscan in video images. And don’t get started with what they pretend to be able to do with encrypted files and the like.

It is with this feeling of trepidation that I watched the first episode of NUMB3RS. The basic idea is kind of interesting: a math prodigy teams with an FBI investigator to use mathematics to help solve crimes. Surprisingly, the pilot episode didn’t make me cringe excessively, but I can’t help but think that sooner or later they will be jumping the shark in every episode. It’s just too difficult to come up with real ideas that are remotely plausible. Soon, I suspect they will be resorting to simple magic to “poof”, solve crimes.

We shall see…

A real look into someone’s day…

My audioblog gives very dim hints as to what goes on in my personal life. This is largely by design: there are parts of my life that I choose to share, and other parts I choose to keep hidden. Once again, Wil Wheaton demonstrates a certain fearlessness in letting us into a part of his life which is filled with equal measures of anticipation, anxiety and hope.

Powerful stuff. For all you podcasters who are just playing music and complaining about bandwidth, give it a listen.

Mini Surgery

I remember hearing the following question:

Q: An alien comes down in a spaceship and hands you a small oblong gizmo. He tells you that it will resolve all national conflicts, cure all known diseases, and grant immortality. Do you:

  1. Present it to the President of the United States?
  2. Present it to the President of the United Nations?
  3. Find a screwdriver so you can open it and see what’s inside?

I guess we know what Russell’s answer would be.

Brainwagon Radio: Small Webservers and Telescope Making

Where your noble host apologizes for his infrequent podcasts, and goes on to describe why he thinks small devices are interesting as webservers, with some suggestions. Also, the history of his involvement in telescope making.

My interest in these small webservers are for implementing an idea that I’ve been calling a digital homestead: a small, self-sufficient presence on the web. I’ll probably expand upon this more in the future.

Links from the show:

  • I wrote about some small devices suitable for serving small websites yesterday. Try looking at polkadot ninja for an example of a website which runs entirely from a small device.
  • My infrequently updated website telescopemaking.org is due for a freshening update. Previously I just handcoded the pages, but it’s obvious that it would be good to use some different software. Can anyone recommend a CMS and/or Wiki that would be the foundation of a good community website? The simpler the better. If you have some suggestions, send me an email.
  • Target has a 10% coupon you can use to order the Mac mini. Haven’t tried it, don’t know about delivery, just saw it on techbargains.com.

Errata: I know the word is “metropolis”, not “metrolopis”. Chalk one up for Spoonerisms.

Cheap Hardware Projects

If anyone has been following this blog for any period of time, you know I’m a bit of a gizmo freak. It’s not that I have the latest and greatest cell phone or PDA. Actually, I’m pretty much a cheapskate, and I don’t like tossing huge sums of money just following the latest trendy thing. I do, however, like to find bargain equipment that I can use to do something interesting (in other words, hacking gadgets). A couple of possible future projects have crossed my Inbox this week, and I thought I’d write them down here so I can remember them, and also pass them on to you.

Slashdot ran an article on a New $149 NetBSD Single Board Computer Port. The TS-7200 is an ARM processor based board which draws about two watts. It has 10/100 Ethernet, a CompactFlash slot, 32M of SDRAM and runs at 200Mhz. Cute, small, and low power, the perfect sort of thing to run a small embedded webserver. You could hook some external drives via the USB port.

In the comments, a reader mentioned the Linksys NSLU2 network storage device. It’s a tiny little computer designed to convert USB drives into network storage. It has two USB2 ports and an Ethernet port. The idea is simple: plug in the drives, configure the device via its embedded webserver and voila! You have shared network storage. It costs a low $80, and most importantly, runs Linux and is hackable. Check out nslu2-linux.org for more information. As an example, the polkadot ninja runs the thttpd daemon on one of these little boxes. Cool!

Buffalo Technologies has a cute gadget called the Kuro Box which is a power PC box with space for an internal hard drive. It costs about $160, a bit more than the NSLU2, but since you can mount an ordinary drive internally, the overall cost should be comparable.

Three neat boxes, all capable of running a webserver.

I wonder if you could actually run WordPress on them…

The Problem with Podcasting

It’s been about a week since I last put out a podcast. I wanted to do one today. After all, I’d hate to think that some of my subscribers would be disappointed by the lack of my cheerful “Welcome to Brainwagon Radio!” appearing on their personal mobile listening device.

But there is a problem with podcasting. You can’t lie as easily.

Today, I’m tired and I’m grumpy. I don’t really know why. I’m not really worried about it. I know I’ll break out of it soon. When I’m tired and grumpy, it’s still possible to do some text blogging: scan my personal blogrolls, look for harmless, goofy stuff to post, and just post it.

But when you are podcasting, you have to lie convincingly. Nobody is going to tune in repeatedly to listen to someone who sounds depressed unless you pay them $120 an hour. Lying convincingly is a skill I don’t possess in any great measure, and to even attempt it takes more energy than I’m likely to be able to muster.

But tomorrow dawns a new day. I’ve got my usual Weight Watchers weigh in, and then, who knows? I hope everyone is doing well, and soon the dulcet tones of my deep voice will be booming over the Internet. Until then, take it easy.