Blackmoor Vituperative

Another piece of science fiction is on its way to being science fact. “Researchers at Stanford University have demonstrated quantum holographic storage, shattering long-held assumptions about the information limits of matter. Moving into the sub-atomic realm, they permanently stored 35 bits in the quantum space surrounding a single electron.” (from ZDNet)

As a friend whom I know by the name “Eridah” recently said (speaking on behalf of Apple), “We can’t simply use iTunes as a file manager for a device, oh no. That’s too complicated for our userbase. No we have to only allow syncing. And only with one computer. And if you plug it into another computer IT WILL DELETE YOUR SONGS.”

iTunes sucks. So, if you have an iPod (as I do), what do you use instead?

First, replace the firmware in the iPod with Rockbox. And make sure you get some fonts and themes for it.

Then, use MP3 files, the most widely supported format for digital music. Everything under the sun supports MP3. It’s not that I think MP3 is the best format for digital music (there are formats with better compression, or better music fidelity, or both). But it is widely supported, and at 192 or more kbps, I can very rarely hear any difference between the original CD and an MP3.

Finally, use MediaMonkey to organize your MP3 files.

Over the past 20 years, huge swaths of the sky have been searched for slowly moving bodies, and well over 1000 KBOs found. But these wide-area surveys can spot only large, bright objects; longer-exposure surveys that can find smaller, dimmer objects cover only small areas of the sky. A Mars-sized object at a distance of, say, 100 AU would be so faint that it could easily have escaped detection.

That could soon change. In December 2008, the first prototype of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) was brought into service at the Haleakala observatory on Maui, Hawaii. Soon, four telescopes – equipped with the world’s largest digital cameras, at 1.4 billion pixels apiece – will search the skies for anything that blinks or moves. Its main purpose is to look out for potentially hazardous asteroids bound for Earth, but inhabitants of the outer solar system will not escape its all-seeing eyes.

(from Is there a Planet X?, New Scientist)

The Laser Avenger is an infrared laser with power levels somewhere in the tens of kilowatts range mounted on a Humvee off-road vehicle. It is designed to take down the smaller variety of UAV, which are hardest for conventional air-defence weapons to target.

The power of its laser has been doubled since 2007, when it was shown off destroying a stationary improvised bomb. Now it has tracked three small UAVs – the exact model has not been given – and shot one of them down. The laser tracks an object and holds fire until the target is close enough for it to cause burning with a single blast.

(from Truck-mounted laser shoots down spy drone, New Scientist)

I got a fun email today from Comcast (my ISP), saying they are blocking port 25, the port on which SMTP sends email, as a measure to fight spam. Isn’t that a kick in the pants? Of course, the only time I send email from home is when mortshire.org sends me reports. However, that is important, so I needed to find a way for mortshire to send me email with Comcast’s blessing. Thanks to Patrick Ben Koetter and Chris Fay, I have done just that.

1. In /etc/postfix/main.cf I added or changed these lines:

myhostname = annwn.mortshire.org
mydomain = mortshire.org
myorigin = $mydomain
mydestination = $myhostname, localhost.$mydomain, localhost, $mydomain


relayhost = [smtp.comcast.net]:587
smtp_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtp_sasl_password_maps = hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
smtp_sasl_security_options=


2. I create a file /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd with the contents:

[smtp.comcast.net]:587 userid:password


where userid and password are my comcast.net username and password.

3. Next, I changed the ownership and permissions on the sasl_passwd file to protect it from unauthorized access.

sudo chown root:root /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd
sudo chmod 600 /etc/postfix/sasl_passwd


4. Finally, I created a database file from the contents of the sasl_passwd file:

sudo postmap hash:/etc/postfix/sasl_passwd


There we go: postfix now uses the Comcast mail gateway, and operates on port 587 rather than 25 (because spammers would never be able to do that, right? Yeeeeaaaahhhhhh…).

(Note: this is Postfix 2.5.5 under Fedora 10.)

Cox has announced a new “congestion management plan” that they are starting to install in certain test markets. On the face of it, I can’t really find much to complain about. They say it will only kick in when traffic is congested, and it doesn’t forge failure messages (like Comcast was doing) or drop “problem” packets, it simply lowers their priority.

Initially, all the traffic on the Cox network will be divided into two categories: time-sensitive and non-time-sensitive. When the network is congested, time-sensitive traffic – applications or uses that are naturally intolerant of delay (loading web pages, instant messages, voice calls, email and gaming) — continues as usual. During that period, less time-sensitive traffic – applications which are tolerant of some delay — such as file uploads, peer-to-peer and Usenet newsgroups – may be momentarily slowed, but only until the local congestion clears up.

Below is a break-down of the time-sensitivity of the various types of traffic that travel the Cox network. Any traffic that is not specifically classified will be treated as time-sensitive.

Time Sensitive

* Web (Web surfing, including web-based email and chat embedded in web pages)
* VoIP (Voice over IP, telephone calls made over the Internet)
* Email
* IM (Instant messages, including related voice and webcam traffic)
* Streaming (Web-based audio and video programs)
* Games (Online interactive games)
* Tunneling & Remote Connectivity (VPN-type services for telecommuting)
* Other (Any service not categorized into another area)

Non-Time Sensitive

* File Access (Bulk transfers of data such as FTP)
* Network Storage (Bulk transfers of data for storage)
* P2P (Peer to peer protocols)
* Software Updates (Managed updates such as operating system updates)
* Usenet (Newsgroup related)

(from Cable, High Speed Internet and Telephone services in Cox Communications, Cox Communications)

My nephew Spencer has been selected in this year’s “Who’s who in band”. He plays the cornet, “a brass instrument very similar to the trumpet”. I have been trying to find out more about “Who’s who in band”, but a Google search surprisingly turns up nothing at all about it.

Even so, it’s pretty cool. I always wished I could play an instrument, but apparently you need to do more than wish. Spencer has accomplished something I never did. That’s pretty nifty.

In the context of a restitution motion, in United States of America v. Dove, the RIAA’s “download equals lost sale” theory has been flatly rejected.

In a 16-page opinion, District Judge James P. Jones, sitting in the Western Disrict of Virginia, denied the RIAA’s request for restitution, holding the RIAA’s reasoning to be unsound:

It is a basic principle of economics that as price increases, demand decreases. Customers who download music and movies for free would not necessarily spend money to acquire the same product. Like the court in Hudson, I am skeptical that customers would pay $7.22 or $19 for something they got for free. Certainly 100% of the illegal downloads through Elite Torrents did not result in the loss of a sale, but both Lionsgate and RIAA estimate their losses based on this faulty assumption.

(from RIAA’s “download equals lost sale” theory rejected by federal court in Virginia; restitution motion denied in USA v. Dove, Recording Industry vs The People)

“This is very significant. It shows you how bad things are for the retail industry,” said George Whalin, president and CEO of Retail Management Consultants.

Whalin said management mistakes over the past few years combined with the recession brought down Circuit City.

“This company made massive mistakes,” he said, citing a decision to get rid of sales people and other mismanagement.

(from Circuit City seeking to liquidate, CNN Money)

This is a shame. Circuit City is been one of a handful of larger companies with their headquarters here in Richmond, VA, and has been here for years. But what Whalin says is true: they have been making huge mistakes for years: mistakes that were obvious to everyone who worked there (I used to work there, as did a good friend of mine until they outsourced his job to IBM). Mistakes that were obvious to everyone, I guess, except the upper management.

Such a shame.

In The Know: Should The Government Stop Dumping Money Into A Giant Hole?

I swear, it’s like The Onion is reading my mind. You know, I remember when it was just a hilarious little one-page web site. How time flies.