brainwagon

Check out the paper linked from this blog post. I haven’t read this one before. More later if I get the chance, maybe even some code. Mark

I don’t plug my employer very often, but I must admit, I’m having enormous fun working on our current project, and received a message from our PR department that an animation test of ours had been released to multiple outlets. It is kind of cute, and I think a good example as to just how […]

The net is abuzz with the comments that Steve Jobs made about DRM the other day. The best commentary that I’ve found (meaning, the person who says most of the stuff that I think, except more eloquently) is Ed Felton over at the Freedom To Tinker blog. Freedom to Tinker » Blog Archive » Apple […]

I may bring this website down for a bit of spring cleaning this weekend.  It’s been running without problem for somewhere close to six years, and in that time I’ve let it get a bit messy, as well as nearly filling the 60gb drive that it’s got in it.    I’ve got a cheap 160gb drive […]

Check out the amazing “Astronomy Picture of the Day”. Damn, wish I could have seen that.

Just read the coverage. If LEDs and batteries are the telltale signs of terrorism, I can only hope that nobody searches my house. Still, I thought this was damned funny. Addendum: Assistant Attorney General John Grossman is a total retard. “It’s clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there […]

apparently Lycos’ motto is “never miss an opportunity to piss off your customers”. Addendum: Lycos?  Are they still in business?

A bunch of different blogs are complaining about the fact that the important 9/11 Commission report is protected by DRM. If you try to copy any text from it, you get prompted with this: Let’s be clear. This is a federal document, paid for by your tax dollars. As such, it is entirely and indisputably […]

The Hubble’s main ACS camera appears to have suffered a short circuit that has resulted in the camera powering down and entering a safe mode. The engineers seem to think that it is rather unlikely that it will be returned to working order, and the problem may affect the actual praticality of the scheduled final […]

Today, Microsoft has finally released their long coming upgrade to the venerable XP line. I’d say that now is the perfect time for you to move on. No, not by upgrading your box from Windows XP to Vista, but by keeping your $200+ dollars in your pocket, and shifting to an operating system where the […]

Adam Dunkels Contiki operating system sported a full TCP/IP stack, and ran on very small microcomputers such as the Commodore 64. Apparently now he’s submitted his PhD these on the topic. It’s a very interesting bit of work, check it out. The Contiki Operating System – PhD Thesis: Programming Memory-Constrained Networked Embedded Systems

Apparently, this memo has been out for a while, but I hadn’t seen it before. I know, I like to rant about Microsoft a lot, but it’s really quite interesting. A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection Some quotes: … so far no-one has been able to identify any Windows system that will actually […]

On Mythbusters tonight, they covered an interesting myth: that it is impossible to fold a piece of paper in half more than seven times. My strange brain full of trivia made me exclaim “That myth was already busted, and by a high school student!” Indeed, a few minutes with a search engine revealed the story: […]

Here are a bunch of books that are licensed under the Creative Commons and for the most part can be freely downloaded, read, and even redistributed (if non commercially). They include books that I already have in dead tree form, like Asterisk: The Future of Telephony or Lessig’s Free Culture, but also include books that […]

I like to read old science books. They serve as a reminder of how far we’ve come, or just as often, how ignorant we remain. This book is nicely illustrated tome, briefly covering topics of astronomy, biology, and particle physics. It’s coverage of evolution seems particularly interesting to me, especially for its (admittedly brief, and […]