Thursday, February 01, 2007

Singingfish?

Has anybody heard of this site?

It seems like a decent place to find music, with download links too...

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Mo Star Trek Mo Problems

The beneficence of a roommate on the occasion of the holidays has resulted today in my acquisition of an entire collector's set of every Star Trek movie DVD.

Do I face the the collection end forward with Shatner, or end forward with Stewart.

Vexing, vexing problems...

Sunday, January 28, 2007

Which science fiction writer are you?

I am:
Gregory Benford
A master literary stylist who is also a working scientist.


Which science fiction writer are you?

Hello Soekris

After a week of successfully setting up an OpenBSD router connecting three subnets, I got sick of the complexity of configuring the Linux firewall I have at home.

So I have ordered a Soekris net4801. It is a device based upon an older processor design, but you really don't need much in the way of power to handle the bandwidth given to you by most American Internet Service Providers in NYC. (I'm looking at you, Time Warner Cable of NYC).

I'm hoping to drop OpenBSD 4.0 on it when it arrives, and transition the linux machine to the apartment backup server.

OpenBSD's pf may not be as easy to setup as a point and click firewall based off of a web GUI, but the configuration is A flat plain text file, which is pretty easy to read and modify, and backup for that matter.

Compare that to the four or five files used by shorewall or the many other Linux firewall programs. I did try to get an old port of OpenBSD's pf to linux working, to no avail. Somebody should really get that working.

Not me.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

40th Anniversary of the first NASA deaths: Apollo 204



There are two good articles that have come out on the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 1, nee Apollo 204 "mishap", in which Roger Chafee, Ed White and Gus Grissom died. The articles discuss the losses of the vehicles & crew of Apollo 1, Challenger in STS-51-L, & Columbia in STS-107.

Forty years later, pad tech recalls Apollo fire

NASA must fight the forgetting



Also:

The Columbia Timeline: STS-107

Friday, January 26, 2007

Google Reader

I added my reader feed to the side.

You might not care...

But it is the closest you're going to come to a lincoln blog from me these days.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Piston Power


Piston Power
Originally uploaded by satmandu.
Il Hwa

Korean Ginseng



Found in Chinatown...

My favorite Pho place is closed


My favorite Pho place is closed
Originally uploaded by satmandu.
"for renovations" the other sign says...



--

Sent via mobile.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Problems with the iPhone

Tactile feedback on the LCD is NEEDED. Aside from the lack of
openness on the device (which keeps it from being a proper smartphone
- the whole you get to install your own applications on it), typing
on a screen is annoyingly slow. I'm not so sure you can really
create muscle memory properly there.

Nuff said?

This really shouldn't be too hard to implement these days.

Just have another layer immediately above the lcd, perhaps beneath a
sheet of plastic, that moves slightly when an electric signal is
applied, for instance piezoelectrically.

so you draw a raised ridge around each virtual key, and you pop the
center of the key up slightly when it is touched long enough to be
pressed.

Is that too much to ask for?

Monday, January 08, 2007

Linux Boots on the Treo 680

<5>Linux version 2.6.17-hnd0 (satadru@debian) (gcc version 4.1.1) #11
Mon Jan 8 16:31:26 EST 2007
<4>CPU: XScale-PXA270 [69054117] revision 7 (ARMv5TE)
<4>Machine: Palm Treo 680
<4>Memory policy: ECC disabled, Data cache writeback
<7>On node 0 totalpages: 16384
<7> DMA zone: 16384 pages, LIFO batch:3
<6>Run Mode clock: 208.00MHz (*16)
<6>Turbo Mode clock: 312.00MHz (*1.5, active)
<6>Memory clock: 208.00MHz (/2)
<6>System bus clock: 208.00MHz
<4>CPU0: D VIVT undefined 5 cache
<4>CPU0: I cache: 32768 bytes, associativity 32, 32 byte lines, 32 sets
<4>CPU0: D cache: 32768 bytes, associativity 32, 32 byte lines, 32 sets
<4>Built 1 zonelists
<5>Kernel command line: init=/linuxrc root=/dev/mmcblk0p2
<4>PID hash table entries: 512 (order: 9, 2048 bytes)
<4>Console: colour dummy device 80x30
<4>Dentry cache hash table entries: 8192 (order: 3, 32768 bytes)
<4>Inode-cache hash table entries: 4096 (order: 2, 16384 bytes)
<6>Memory: 64MB = 64MB total
<5>Memory: 61988KB available (2292K code, 493K data, 88K init)
<7>Calibrating delay loop... 311.29 BogoMIPS (lpj=1556480)
<4>Mount-cache hash table entries: 512
<6>CPU: Testing write buffer coherency: ok
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 16
<4>spurious IRQ for DMA channel 0
<4>spurious IRQ for DMA channel 1
<7>irda_init()
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 23
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 2
<4>IP route cache hash table entries: 512 (order: -1, 2048 bytes)
<4>TCP established hash table entries: 2048 (order: 1, 8192 bytes)
<4>TCP bind hash table entries: 1024 (order: 0, 4096 bytes)
<6>TCP: Hash tables configured (established 2048 bind 1024)
<6>TCP reno registered
<4>NetWinder Floating Point Emulator V0.97 (double precision)
<6>Initializing Cryptographic API
<6>io scheduler noop registered
<6>io scheduler anticipatory registered (default)
<6>io scheduler deadline registered
<6>io scheduler cfq registered
<4>Corgi Backlight Driver Initialized.
<4>pxa2xx-fb pxa2xx-fb: machine LCCR3 setting contains illegal bits:
00300000
<4>Console: switching to colour frame buffer device 53x29
<4>SA1100/PXA2xx Watchdog Timer: timer margin 60 sec
<6>pxa2xx-uart.0: ttyS0 at MMIO 0x40100000 (irq = 22) is a FFUART
<6>pxa2xx-uart.1: ttyS1 at MMIO 0x40200000 (irq = 21) is a BTUART
<6>pxa2xx-uart.2: ttyS2 at MMIO 0x40700000 (irq = 20) is a STUART
<4>RAMDISK driver initialized: 16 RAM disks of 4096K size 1024 blocksize
<6>loop: loaded (max 8 devices)
<6>pxa27x_udc: version 21-Jul-2005
<5>USB cmd disconnect
<6>mice: PS/2 mouse device common for all mice
<6>ts: Compaq touchscreen protocol output
<6>input: pxa27x-keyboard as /class/input/input0
<6>wm97xx: version 0.61 liam.girdwood@wolfsonmicro.com
<6>SA1100 Real Time Clock driver v1.03
<6>Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Driver Version 1.0.11rc4 (Wed
Mar 22 10:27:24 2006 UTC).
<6>pxa2xx_ac97_reset: cold reset timeout (GSR=0x0)
<6>wm97xx: detected a wm9712 codec
<6>input: wm97xx touchscreen as /class/input/input1
<4>wm97xx: setting adc sample delay to 333 u Secs.
<6>ALSA device list:
<6> #0: pxa2xx-ac97 (Wolfson WM9711,WM9712)
<6>TCP bic registered
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 1
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 17
<6>NET: Registered protocol family 15
<6>IrCOMM protocol (Dag Brattli)
<4>drivers/rtc/hctosys.c: unable to open rtc device (rtc0)
<6>mmcblk0: mmc0:80ca SD01G 992000KiB
<6> mmcblk0: p1 p2 p3
<4>VFS: Mounted root (ext2 filesystem) readonly.
<6>Freeing init memory: 88K

Sunday, January 07, 2007

linux on the Treo 650

Thanks to BobofDoom on #shadowmite on efnet, I got top running on the
Treo 650.

Way way cool.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Allen Looking Out Over Harlem


Allen Looking Out Over Harlem
Originally uploaded by satmandu.
from the bow of the building.

Monday, December 25, 2006

FreshDirect!

FreshDirect just let me sign up with my address.

Hooray for getting food delivered to my place after ordering over the web!

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Another One Bites The Dust

As of this week, I have finished watching all 12 seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer & Angel.

And yes, it was all worth it.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

He was pronounced dead at a hospital until transferred to a better hospital where doctors upgraded his condition to alive.

That was my Simposonian half hour at the dentist.

I went in expecting to get a cavity filled. I was told that my
dentist had left to start her own practice. The new dentist said she
was more conservative, looked at my teeth, pronounced that I didn't
have cavities after all, and sent me on my merry way with a minor
prescription.

And I saved $300.

Monday, November 13, 2006

Public Service Announcement

The occasion of a roommate heading to the airport to fly should be accompanied by one taking the opportunity to read this TSA.gov PSA to them in a hackneyed PA voice before they leave:


Over Head PA Announcement


Effective immediately by order of the Transportation Security Administration: If you plan to travel with liquids, gels or aerosols in your carry-on bag remember 3-1-1. All liquids, gels and aerosols must be in a 3 ounce or less sized containers. Containers must be placed in a 1 quart-size, clear, plastic, zip-top bag. Only one bag is permitted per traveler. It must be removed from your carry-on and placed in the security bin for x-ray screening. Remember 3-1-1 to speed your screening process.

Friday, November 03, 2006

HAHA

So as it turns out, a calorie restricted diet increases your lifespan by 15%.

They have now discovered that lowering average body temperature by .5 degrees C does the same thing for mice, without any decrease in caloric consumption.

And guess what?

A calorie restricted diet also lowers your body temperature.

Now if only people were researching links between SIR2 & Temperature...

Tuesday, October 31, 2006

Defining Roles

Has anybody noticed that after watching Studio 60 on the Sunset Trip,
you tend to see Matt Albie in any role that Matthew Perry plays?

I was watching a Friends rerun last night, and I just didn't see
Chandler Bing any more.

I suppose this is a good thing, which will also make me bitter if the
swirling rumors of the cancellation of Studio 60 pan out.

Sunday, October 29, 2006

More Vernors


More Vernors
Originally uploaded by satmandu.
Courtesy of a Michigan trip of Laura's.



Mmmmmm.