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The wanderings of a modern ronin.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-15 12:45
  Subject:   ZP: Overlord 2
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  Tags:  reddit


http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/822-Overlord-2

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-15 12:32
  Subject:   Bobby Tables is excited about NASA's Mars mission!
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  Tags:  reddit


Read more... )

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-14 17:56
  Subject:   Top ten ways to annoy your teammate(s) in L4D
Public


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_eF2AbrQhk

You will experience all of these (and more) in the first ten minutes if you play with the 14 year olds on Xbox Live!

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-14 11:19
  Subject:   Latency comparison between cache, RAM and swap.
Public
  Music:Richard Clapton - Ode To A Slowboat


Read more... )

After you view this image, ask yourself: "With a few gigabytes of RAM, why should my computer ever need to swap to hard disk?"

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-14 11:14
  Subject:   Stego your torrents into .PNG files
Public


Hidim turns a torrent into a regular PNG image

You save the png yourself. You can post it anywhere. People can decode it, but it can't be searched for... it won't turn up in searches for those torrents, unless you provide text that matches.


http://www.hid.im/

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-13 17:13
  Subject:   Monday flash fun: Demolition City
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  Tags:  reddit


http://armorgames.com/play/4142/demolition-city

Look out on level 8 - no part of the collapsing building is allowed to fall very far to the right.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-13 15:51
  Subject:   The Esquire interview with Gerard Butler.
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  Tags:  digg


We sent one of our most open-minded reporters, a man largely unsullied by any familiarity with our Hollywood-obsessed world, to interview this guy. We gave him a first name and an address, nothing more. We were pretty certain Cal had never heard of him. This is what happened.

http://www.esquire.com/features/gerard-butler-interview-0809

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-12 23:43
  Subject:   The QoW good strip roundup.
Public


So [info]scarybaldguy used an amusing quote from Queen Of Wands, and I realized I'd never read through it. Had nothing else to do this evening (aside from laundry), so I did it. Of course, the "Vagina Dentata" strip is well-known - and deservedly so. But here are some other good strips I also liked:

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20031208.html - Best Charles Darwin EVER.

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040126.html - Going to have to remember this come-back.

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040301.html - "WE CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT THE HOBITTSES, YES..."

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040412.html - Love kids? Of course we do!

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040416.html - Want!

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040628.html - I swear Randy Milholland of Something*Positive co-wrote this...

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040630.html - This is actually the start of a really hilarious three-strip tear. I'm going to say that it's the best three strip run in the whole comic.

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20040924.html - This is a fairly good run too, and I love it when women call other women on their bullshit.

http://www.queenofwands.net/d/20041018.html - I've noted this one before, and I still think it's hilarious. Possibly the best QoW strip.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-12 19:51
  Subject:   Emma Watson: "I'm dating my stalker."
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  Music:NIN - Starfuckers Inc
  Tags:  digg


Another odd exchange arose from a question about how fame complicates love — particularly for Radcliffe, who intimated how he may have inherited Harry Potter’s romantic challenges. “I don’t really feel like I’m in the world of dating,” he said. “I don’t feel like a young 20-something in that sort of… I don’t have that sort of life. I’m working. I’m happy working. It’s not the case where I don’t have time to have a girlfriend. I do. I’m like everyone else, I suppose. It’s weird, because people always ask, ‘You’re Harry Potter — does that help you get girls?’ I was 8 when I started this. I don’t know what it’s like to get girls without having been Harry Potter.”

But could he ever date a fan?

“Fortunately I don’t think that’s the case for any of us,” Radcliffe said. “I don’t think any of us are—”

“What?” Watson deadpanned. “I’m dating my stalker!”

“Well, that is usually the best way to deal with them,” Radcliffe said. “Just be up front with them.

“He’s always there when I need him. I can be very demanding. He’s so into me! It’s the way to go. I recommend it.”

Radcliffe’s eyes widened. “I’m not.”


http://www.movieline.com/2009/07/daniel-radcliffe-and-emma-watson-on-love-and-lust-harry-potter-style.php

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-12 19:42
  Subject:   Trent Reznor on what a new band should do with new media.
Public
  Tags:  digg


http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?30,767183,page=1

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-12 19:18
  Subject:   GWAR's lead singer Oderus gets a gig on Fox news. (Really!)
Public
  Music:GWAR - Bonus Plan (from War Party)
  Tags:  digg




Fox News' 'Red Eye' recently gained a new correspondent on their show. An Interplanetary Correspondent, no less, in the guise of Oderus Urungus, frontman for shlock metalheads Gwar.

"It's really weird, all of a sudden Oderus has been showing up in all these weird places," Dave Brockie, the man behind the rubber-suited Oderus Urungus, tells Noisecreep. "We're developing him as a TV personality in his own right."

This week Brockie traveled to Las Vegas to do an onsite report from the World Series of Poker tournament for the news-spoofing 'Red Eye.' Who better to comment on news items and events than a blood-lusting, sexually perverted, extra terrestrial with one hell of a bad attitude?


http://www.noisecreep.com/2009/07/09/gwars-oderus-urungu-gets-cool-gig-on-fox-news/?icid=main|main|dl5|link5|http://www.noisecreep.com/2009/07/09/gwars-oderus-urungu-gets-cool-gig-on-fox-news/

Includes video.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-12 19:03
  Subject:   Mythbusters are going to test the Gorn Cannon from Star Trek: TOS
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  Tags:  digg


Mythbusters, the Discover Channel show that puts urban legends (and TV & movie magic) to the test, is finally going to take on Star Trek. Specifically they are going to test the feasibility of the cannon that Captain James T. Kirk built to defeat the Gorn in the original series Star Trek episode "Arena".

Yesterday Grant Imahara, one of the Mythbusters, reported (on his Twitter page), that he was going to discuss the gorn cannon idea at a story meeting and he was watching “Arena” to get ready. He later posted an image from the meeting (see below). Then, after the meeting he reported the good news:

"YesssssKirk!!! It’s official. #Gorncannon is a go for next season’s Viewer’s Special. Thanks to all fans 4 your help! :)"

Today Imahara tweeted that he ordered a Starfleet uniform (appropriately in science blue), and that the show’s crash test dummy “Buster” will be getting a red shirt.


http://trekmovie.com/2009/07/09/mythbusters-to-test-star-treks-gorn-cannon/

(snif) Grant makes me so proud to be a huge nerd. (snif)

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-12 16:17
  Subject:   Penn & Teller: Bullshit - Video Games
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  Tags:  reddit


Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-11 15:51
  Subject:   Moto-neutral demylination (aka Duke Nukem's disease) is SRS BSNS.
Public
  Mood:amused
  Tags:  reddit


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jBKKV2V8eU

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-11 03:42
  Subject:   Former Cygna exec explains how the insurance companies are going to kill public health care.
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  Tags:  reddit


They don't want a public plan. They want all the uninsured to have to be enrolled in a private insurance plan. They want-- they see those 50 million people as potentially 50 million new customers. So they're in favor of that. They see this as a way to essentially lock them into the system, and ensure their profitability in the future. The strategy is as it was in 1993 and '94, to conduct this charm offensive on the surface. But behind the scenes, to use front groups and third-party advocates and ideological allies. And those on Capitol Hill who are aligned with them, philosophically, to do the dirty work. To demean and scare people about a government-run plan, try to make people not even remember that Medicare, their Medicare program, is a government-run plan that has operated a lot more efficiently.

And also, the people who are enrolled in our Medicare plan like it better. The satisfaction ratings are higher in our Medicare program, a government-run program, than in private insurance. But they don't want you to remember that or to know that, and they want to scare you into thinking that through the anecdotes they tell you, that any government-run system, particularly those in Canada, and UK, and France that the people are very unhappy.

And that these people will have to wait in long lines to get care, or wait a long time to get care. I'd like to take them down to Wise County. I'd like the president to come down to Wise County, and see some real lines of Americans, standing in line to get their care.


http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07102009/watch2.html

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-10 19:20
  Subject:   I, for one, welcome our speedy and highly precise new overlords.
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  Tags:  reddit


http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/09/the-flexpicker-industrial-robot-built-for-speed-video/

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-10 19:06
  Subject:   Isle of Man electric superbikes in action.
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  Tags:  reddit


Multiple embedded youtube videos )

http://www.recycle.co.uk/blog/ttxgp/

I love the way they sound.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-10 14:36
  Subject:   The real meanings of various flags.
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  Tags:  reddit


Large image )

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-10 03:21
  Subject:   MechWarrior 5 in development
Public
  Music:MC Frontalot - Mecha Mechanics
  Tags:  reddit


http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2009/07/mechwarrior-franchise-to-get-a-reboot.ars

Includes intro video.

Also, free MW4.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-10 03:18
  Subject:   Incredibots 2
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  Tags:  reddit


http://www.kongregate.com/games/GrubbyGames/incredibots-2

A lot more fun than the first one. The tutorials are way better, it seems to run more smoothly, and the ability to make your own levels and share them is just what the doctor ordered.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-10 01:13
  Subject:   Moon
Public


The reviews said this was a slow-moving, cerebral kind of movie, and they were right. So much is left unsaid or implied. I'm sure this will never show in mainstream theaters because of the pacing and lack of explosions. Which is a shame, really. The story is reasonably interesting, it's got some pretty cool sets, and may be the most believable "actor plays two roles in the same shot" performance in decades.

If you're in the mood to turn your brain on during a sci-fi movie for a change, this is a good one.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-09 16:21
  Subject:   MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!
Public
  Mood:evil
  Music:Warlock - Sign Of Satan
  Tags:  reddit, straight to hell


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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-09 15:17
  Subject:   Why is FireFox 3.5 is so slow to start up? Clean out your temp dirs and see...
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  Tags:  reddit


That forum thread revealed what the true cause was of this disk trashing and delay at startup. I have to warn you though. If you're a developer, your software engineering fire will die a little when you read the true cause and from then on you will have to fight off thoughts of giving up development altogether and apply for a job in marketing or HR. So what was it, what's the cause of this slowness? It's NSS. What? The Network Security System. It turns out that NSS needs to do all kinds of encryption and other security related tasks, and for that it needs random numbers. Sounds reasonable, right?

True random numbers are hard to produce, because in a computer system, nothing is really random, it all is a result of some action which was a result of some action etc. etc. The clever boys and girls of the NSS team had to crack this problem: how to get 'true' random numbers which are as random as possible? Instead of using the randomization functionality of the underlying operating system (which has this feature build-in as every TCP stack for example needs it), they did what Mozilla in general always does: they re-invented the wheel.

To solve the problem of the randomization, the NSS team came up with something clever, something so great, that no-one else had ever thought of that before: they decided to read the files in all possible temp folders on disk with multiple threads so these files can be used as seeds for the randomization. Brilliant. Temp folders! Why hasn't anyone else thought of using a disk-based resource for random number generation! I mean, these folders change every couple of milliseconds, have immediate access, no latency to read their contents and are never filled to the brim with useless cruft!

That is, if you're on the NSS team. In the outside world, things are a tad different. You see, Firefox v3.5 reads the Internet Explorer Cache and the central Windows temp folder in your user profile, through its NSS subsystem. Not only is it, in my humble opinion, not done to read another application's caches or temp folders, it's also amazingly ignorant towards the real bottlenecks of our modern computers: hard-drives. If you're using a virus-scanner which is set to paranoia mode, this whole temp folder traversal by NSS will be even slower because every file accessed will be scanned by the virus scanner. Over and over and over again. And what happens if the user doesn't do anything else but browse with Firefox, so these temp folders will not change (or are empty)? Isn't using file reading the worst way to obtain a seed for randomization?


http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma/archive/2009/07/09/the-firefox-3-5-fiasco.aspx

Often in life, you know that X is the wrong way to do things. You just don't know what the right way is. This is obviously the wrong way, but what's the right way?

If you ask me, it's long past time we stopped using software psuedo-random number generators. Hardware based single microchip true RNGs are available and not very expensive. There's no good reason we can't have one on every motherboard. (Or for that matter, just put one on a USB stick.)

Until then? Well, maybe the short-term fix is simply to not read every damn file in the temp directory on program startup? Some kind of read limit (read N files and then stop; read up to X kB from as many files as required to get there and then stop), or sampling scheme (read only 1 out of every N files, and scale N proportionally to the number of files in the temp directory, so as to maintain a constant number of files read) might be in order.

Failing that, maybe what we need is to delay all this randomization until it's actually used. I suspect most of us never use HTTPS in a typical browsing session. How about a dialog window that pops up the first time we start an HTTPS connection, reading "Generating random encryption keys..." That way at least people understand that their security comes at a time cost. And those of us who don't want (or need) secure connections don't pay a time penalty for functionality we're not using.


Edit:

So, here's what I did in Vista: Open IE, use the Tools or Options or whatever menu to clear all caches, cookies, saved form data, everything. (I never use IE, so I don't mind wiping it. If you use IE... well, you're pretty much screwed anyway.) Second, open a command prompt. Now close all other running applications - everything. In the command prompt, type "cd %temp%". That will take you to your user temp dir. Now type "cd .." to jump up a level. Now do "rmdir /s Temp" to remove the temp dir and all the files in it. Exit the command prompt. Just to be safe, I also rebooted.

The first startup of FireFox was still about 3 seconds, mostly due to loading time. The second and subsequent startups are all < 500ms.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-08 17:48
  Subject:   Mmmmm... Megan Fox as a vampire.
Public


If she thought starring in one of summer's biggest blockbusters - Transformers - would open doors to a host of credible and challenging new roles it seems Megan Fox may have been mistaken. In a role which isn't likely to put the 23-year-old in any danger of receiving an Oscar nod, the actress plays a cheerleader gone bad in her new movie Jennifer's Body. Megan, who stars alongside former The OC star Adam Brody and a host of other C List actors, is possessed by a demon and starts feeding off the boys in a small Minnesota farming town.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1197790/First-look-Megan-Foxs-bizarre-new-role-possessed-cheerleader-vampire-new-movie-Jennifers-Body.html

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-08 16:09
  Subject:   A synapse is a memristor.
Public



Neuron cell architecture. (a) Despite having only four pins (discs), cell circuitry (b) can compute analog dot products of large numbers of input signals and synaptic weights, using summing amplifiers. Cell processing implements shunting dynamics. (c) Dendrites (horizontal nanowires) collect inputs from other neurons; axons (vertical nanowires) carry information to other neurons.

http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/07/synapse-is-memristor-and-memcapacitors.html

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20327151.600-memristor-minds-the-future-of-artificial-intelligence.html?full=true


Take that, John Searle!

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-08 14:11
  Subject:   Habeus Corpus? What's that?
Public
  Mood:usa not worth saving
  Music:System Of A Down - Kill Me Now
  Tags:  reddit


The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124699680303307309.html

(head-desk)

(head-desk)

(head-desk)

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-07 16:14
  Subject:   More experiences with drug decriminalization.
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  Tags:  reddit


The real action in cannabis legalization is at the state level. More than a dozen states now have effective medical marijuana laws, most notably California. Medical marijuana dispensaries are dotted all over the state, and it's common knowledge that the "medical" part is in many cases a thin fiction. Like the Dutch coffeehouses, California's dispensaries are now a de facto legal distribution network that severs the link between cannabis and other illicit drugs for a significant number of adults (albeit still only a fraction of total users). And the result? Nothing. "We've had this experiment for a decade and the sky hasn't fallen," says Paul Armentano, deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has even introduced a bill that would legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana; it has gained the endorsement of the head of the state's tax collection agency, which informally estimates it could collect $1.3 billion a year from cannabis sales. Still, the legislation hasn't found a single cosponsor, and isn't scheduled for so much as a hearing.

Which is too bad. Going into this assignment, I didn't care much personally about cannabis legalization. I just had a vague sense that if other people wanted to do it, why not let them? But the evidence suggests pretty clearly that we ought to significantly soften our laws on marijuana. Too many lives have been ruined and too much money spent for a social benefit that, if not zero, certainly isn't very high.

And it may actually happen. If attitudes continue to soften; if the Obama administration turns down the volume on anti-pot propaganda; if medical dispensaries avoid heavy commercialization; if drug use remains stable; and if emergency rooms don't start filling up with drug-related traumas while all this is happening, California's experience could go a long way toward destigmatizing cannabis use. That's a lot of ifs.

Still, things are changing. Even GOP icon Arnold Schwarzenegger now says, "I think it's time for a debate." That doesn't mean he's in favor of legalizing pot right this minute, but it might mean we're getting close to a tipping point. Ten years from now, as the flower power generation enters its 70s, you might finally be able to smoke a fully legal, taxed, and regulated joint.


http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2009/07/patriots-guide-legalization

See also, Portugal's experiment with legalization.

I should note that I'm not in blanket favor of legalizing all drugs. In fact, I'm pretty much only in favor of legalizing pot. I want meth and especially heroin to stay illegal as hell. But pot? We can't do any damage to society with pot that we haven't already done with alcohol.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-06 14:25
  Subject:   Phrack 66: BIOS viruses theory and practice
Public
  Tags:  reddit


http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=66&id=7#article

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-04 23:29
  Subject:   Mark this moment: Reddit has officially jumped the shark.
Public
  Music:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDW_Hj2K0wo
  Tags:  reddit




As soon as Reddit started taking paid ads for the front page, it was inevitable that this day would come. I just didn't think it would come so quickly.

And how appropriate it should be on July 4th...

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-02 12:21
  Subject:   Deathly afraid of chickens? Avoid white trash TV shows!
Public
  Music:Benny Hill - Yakety Sax
  Tags:  reddit


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf8FQYv9lD4

It's even funnier when you run the URL through the BennyHillifier.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-02 00:30
  Subject:   FANUC robotics: the robot is making your bacon.
Public
  Mood:robo-pr0n
  Music:Austrian Death Machine - I am a Cybernetic Organism
  Tags:  reddit




This video features an M-710iB using iRVison to cut pork into bacon and ribs using a double edged blade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kum7BCOkE5A

http://www.youtube.com/user/FANUCRoboticsInc

http://www.fanucrobotics.com/

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-07-01 17:17
  Subject:   60 Minutes: Using FMRI to "mind-read."
Public
  Tags:  reddit


http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9pzcq_the-present-future-of-mindreading-t_news

Very interesting stuff. The one achillies heel I see for this is, it only works if you pre-train the computer with the brain patterns of many people looking at the given object. If you never trained the computer to recognize what the brain activity for a unicorn looks like, and the person being scanned thinks of a unicorn, then the computer is going to have no idea what's going on.

This will get interesting, however, when we find a way to take all this stimulus data from the brain of one person and stimulate the exact same regions in the brain of another person. Then you'll have something like telepathy. A crude kind of Deanna Troy psychic empathy - you feel similar kinds of sensations and emotions as the other person does, because similar parts of your brain and their brain are being stimulated.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-30 23:49
  Subject:   Download IE8 & get a free Nickelback MP3!
Public
  Mood:lose - lose situations
  Music:Nickelback - Another Hole In The Head
  Tags:  reddit


"Maybe I'm missing something, but don't these kinds of deals usually include some kind of incentive?"

"This is the best idea Mozilla ever came up with!"

"No fair! Why didn't they have a Creed edition of IE 6?"

"This can't be real. ...it's like Microsoft is trying everything it can to be the butt of all internet jokes."

"if I uninstall ie8, will it remove a Nickelback mp3 from the internet?"

"This is how you remind me of what Microsoft really is."

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 19:56
  Subject:   Iraq currently throwing massive GTFO party.
Public
  Tags:  reddit


http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hwK_CSpBxsNuVUEaDuOwmSSCiqGwD994J8MG0

We're out of their cities. That's a very good first step. But I'll be waiting to throw the real party until all of our troops have come home.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 19:24
  Subject:   So what did I think of Transformers 2?
Public


I went to Transformers 2 with only two goals in mind:

- I wanted to see giant robots brawling and blowing shit up.
- I wanted to drool at Megan Fox.

Both of these objectives were amply satisfied. So in that respect, I can say that I got my $9 worth.

That said, there's basically nothing worthwhile in this movie. I experienced only a single genuine moment of joy: when the two generic buddy-cops (who are so generic I can't even remember either character's name or back-story - not that there probably was much of one) drive into a randomly placed excavation site and park in front of a big, lime-green mining truck. At this point, my brain actually woke up from its slack-jawed / overwhelmed slumber and started chanting: "Oh please be a giant robot! Oh please be a giant robot!"

Well, rest assured - it's a giant robot.

The fact that this is the sole memorable moment in the entire two and a half hour movie should speak volumes. And yes, I admit that I've had a busy weekend. But still: this is the only thing I remember from a movie that I saw on Thursday night. Oh, all right; I liked Soundwave and his silver mecha-tiger. And I liked crotchety old Jetfire in spite of myself. But seriously, that's it. Those are the only things I can remember about the movie, a mere three days after seeing it.

This movie is the ultimate in big, dumb, forgettable summer celluloid. In every way I can think of this movie is bigger, dumber and more forgettable than any other movie I've ever seen. Ever.

I'd still recommend it. I'd even recommend paying full price. But you probably won't remember it the next day. And in a week? Completely forgotten.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 18:38
  Subject:   Why I choose to wear a helmet.
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  Tags:  reddit


http://www.flickr.com/photos/roentgenator/3666415593/

I respect other people's right to wear (or not wear) whatever gear they feel is appropriate. Their body, their life, their choice. But as for me? I'll be wearing my full-face helmet, thanks.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 18:38
  Subject:   Feynman: How a train stays on track.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7h4OtFDnYE

We miss ya, RF.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 17:47
  Subject:   40oz styrofoam Sonic soda cup breaks windshield. Mythbusters should do this!
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  Tags:  reddit


It all started Wednesday, when I got an email from Brandon Webb, who handles PR for the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics at UT Dallas. He wanted to know if I could talk to a reporter who wanted to know whether a Styrofoam cup could break a windshield. (That's an advantage to being officially mediagenic - I don't get contacted directly now - they go through my 'people' a.k.a Brandon.)

C'mon - a Stryofoam cup break a windshield? Not likely. Then the reporter emailed me the photos. The windshield looks like a rock went through it just above the inspection sticker. For you non-Texans, that's a few inches from the bottom left side of the windshield.

Marilyn Mackey, the driver of the car with the broken windshield, was traveling about 65 mph down a highway. As a car passed her in the opposite direction, its driver threw a cup out his or her window. We know it was a cup of soda because, in addition to poor Marilyn getting wet, there is sticky dried cola-colored liquid all over the inside of the car. The police pulled part of the cup out of the windshield (which is how we know it came from Sonic) and found a shredded straw inside the car.


http://twistedphysics.typepad.com/cocktail_party_physics/2009/06/dialascientist.html

I don't doubt that a 2 lb, 130 MPH mass of water has sufficient kinetic energy to break a windshield. As some people know, even a small piece of super-hard spark plug ceramic thrown by hand (weighs only a tiny amount, and is going far less than 130 MPH) can break a car window. But see, that's key here - hardness. I don't believe that styrofoam is hard enough to break glass, no matter how fast it's going. Same with liquid water. Now, an ice cube at 130 MPH? Maybe.

Someone alert Adam and Jamie.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 17:00
  Subject:   Top Gear: Veyron vs. McLaren F1
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVlbvxd0Q10

HD version available.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-29 02:18
  Subject:   Hike to Jasper Lake, 2009/06/27
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  Music:Green Day - Welcome To Paradise


65 images, ~7 MB )

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-27 17:59
  Subject:   Dear Media: Don't pretend like you ever respected Michael Jackson.
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  Music:The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy - Famous And Dandy (like Amos And Andy)


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVACUjHn6yU

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-26 17:17
  Subject:   So you think you're smart enough to design a switch-mode power supply?
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Read this and weep.

I like this one particularly:

The first power supply I ever designed for production was a transistor series regulator. Out of the first 100 fielded, 18 failed within three months. The problem was a path through semiconductor junctions that depended on back-biased junctions for impedance. In an all-parts change, a 10 ohm resistor was added into the collector of a transistor to break up the path. With several thousand units in the field for the ten year life of the product, there was never another failure.

This rather traumatic experience motivated me to become an expert in reliable power supply design. I hope to share much of what I have learned throughout this hypertext. This was one of my first and most important lessons - learned the hard way. Needless to say, looking for low impedance circuit paths through semiconductors is one of the first thing I look for in a design or design review. It has saved myself and many others much grief.

Besides damaging circuit components, inadvertently forward-biased junctions can cause system malfunctions. I received a letter of commendation for solving this problem with a hydrofoil patrol boat. The boat would crash down off the hydrofoils onto the hull anytime the crew transmitted a message or flushed the toilet. The problem with the transmitter was that the high-frequency-ac radiated signal was picked up and rectified by a diode to a dc voltage. This voltage appeared across the gate of an SCR in the hydrofoil control system protection circuit, activating the circuit. The toilet flushing problem was an unsuppressed inductive kick when the pump motor flushing the toilet turned off, thereby activating the control system protections circuit. Desensitizing the control system protection circuit solved both problems. The toilet pump motor was also interesting. An aircraft type toilet, it was suppressed assuming the grounding system used in aircraft, not ships. Adding suppression techniques suitable for ships also solved the problem with the toilet pump motor. The lesson learned? Normally back-biased junctions can be turned on by the environment and you have to protect against the consequences of this happening.


http://www.smpstech.com/junction.htm


See also, tutorial on switch-mode PSes at the same site.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-26 12:37
  Subject:   The dead Jacko joke roundup.
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  Music:Michael Jackson - Heartbreaker
  Tags:  humor, straight to hell


Laugh at any of these, and you're going straight to hell with me. ;] )

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-25 18:45
  Subject:   The random video gamez post.
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Personal/trivial )

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-25 18:11
  Subject:   An insider and former CEO explains how health insurance companies operate.
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The reason we generally like markets is that the profit incentive spurs useful innovations. But in some markets, that's not the case. We don't allow a bustling market in heroin, for instance, because we don't want a lot of innovation in heroin creation, packaging and advertising. Are we really sure we want a bustling market in how to cleverly revoke the insurance of people who prove to be sickly?

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/06/the_truth_about_the_insurance.html

(via [info]flemco)

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-24 15:53
  Subject:   M5-built giant crypto machine for sale.
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What we have here is a genuine functioning coding cryptex built by Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman from Mythbusters. They used it for a demonstration at the RSA Conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco, April 24th, 2009. See a video of the demonstration at the following link: http://media.omediaweb.com/rsa2009/keynote_catalog.htm.

The client wanted a unique demonstration of something to do with encryption and secrecy, and Jamie Hyneman, and Adam Savage designed, built and used this machine to encode the phrase "Cryptologists do it in secret". Then they went on stage at RSA and used the machine to DECRYPT the secret message. The appearance was a smash success. The crowd was great. The machine worked great.

THE MACHINE: at 13' long, and just over 6' high, it's made to be highly visible, even from the back of the audience. It's composed of a long pole, holding 29 distinct wheels, built from MDF and Cintra, with applied vinyl letters. There are 4 different alphabet wheels randomly distributed among the 29, making this a moderately robust coding machine (save for the fact that pictures here compromise it's secrecy). All of this sits on a custom welded steel frame and heavy-duty castors. Although it weighs approximately 300 pounds, it rolls around quite easily.

It likely is eligible for a world's record for the largest manual-encoding machine ever built but Jamie's getting cranky about it cluttering up the shop, so his crankyness is your gain. If the WINNING BIDDER wants to call the Guinness people we wouldn't discourage such a thing.

[...]

But wait! I hear you saying "Jamie and Adam are fabulously wealthy international television stars! Do they really need the money from selling this thing?" (First of all you'd be wrong; we're far from fabulously wealthy, because Jamie keeps blowing all his dough on robots and white shirts - Okay that part isn't true either.)

What IS true is that we're NOT keeping the money from the sale of this extremely rare artifact. All proceeds from this sale will go to the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Why? Well because they fight for excellent causes near and dear to our hearts. We will present them a check for the selling price mere days after the auction ends.


http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150354123492&ssPageName=ADME:L:LCA:US:1123

Oh sure, keep the giant hydraulic shark. But not the crypto machine. I see how it is. ;]

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-24 13:51
  Subject:   Forbes gives Panasonic ToughBook to wild animals.
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  Mood:techlarity ensues
  Music:Survivor - Eye Of The Tiger
  Tags:  reddit




We found, however, that Panasonic's Toughbook performed as promised. So we came up with some tests that were decidedly unfair.

We used the Panasonic Toughbook to serve Doritos. Then we crushed the chips to dust between the keyboard and the screen, the same screen we used as a dartboard. The darts poked holes in the screen's protective coating, but the display underneath remained undamaged. Not a single dead pixel.

So we presented the $3,460 Toughbook to Nalin, a white tiger who lives at Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, Calif. Nalin treated it like a cat toy, knocking it to the ground, gnawing on the screen and licking every inch of its surface. He must have smelled those Doritos. He chewed off five keys, but that turned out to be just cosmetic. We could still type without them, and were able to glue four back on later (we made sure Nalin didn't swallow anything). The fifth just snapped back into place.


http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/23/toughbook-tiger-elephant-technology-personal-test.html

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-24 12:29
  Subject:   ZP: Prototype (vs Infamous)
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http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/789-Prototype

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-23 13:23
  Subject:   I don't think Ebert liked Transformers 2. ;]
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Aware that this movie opened in England seven hours before Chicago time and the morning papers would be on the streets, after writing the above I looked up the first reviews as a reality check. I was reassured: "Like watching paint dry while getting hit over the head with a frying pan!" (Bradshaw, Guardian); "Sums up everything that is most tedious, crass and despicable about modern Hollywood!" (Tookey, Daily Mail); "A giant, lumbering idiot of a movie!" (Edwards, Daily Mirror). The first American review, however, reported that it "feels destined to be the biggest movie of all time" (Todd Gilchrist, Cinematical). It’s certainly the biggest something of all time.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090623/REVIEWS/906239997

I'll still be watching it of course, purely for the Megan Fox special effects. Hopefully Moon will be a better sci-fi movie.

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Ben Cantrick
  Date: 2009-06-23 01:21
  Subject:   Video of the Martin Jetpack in action.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLccl_NWDQE

So, last I heard, there was speculation the Martin Jetpack couldn't fly outside of ground effect. The video doesn't disprove that, but it's still lots of fun to watch.

The engine is pretty cool. Though I have a feeling that they could still do better with a turbine. I mean if Wendell Moore could make a smaller jetpack than this in the 1960's, imagine what we can do today with inconel and hastelloy...

(Also, let's not forget that this was also done in the early 2000's by the SoloTrek.)

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