Danny-fr(Translation['lost'])

2008-10-13T23:33:00.001-07:00

On CNET, an during an interview between Ina Fried and and Brad Brooks, vice president of Windows Consumer Product Marketing.

If you had to list the top couple of things that you think people don't understand about the value of Vista, what would be on that list?
Brooks: No. 1 is that I think, first and foremost, people don't realize the versatility of what a Windows Vista machine can give them around their entertainment and media experiences.

(source http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-10064580-75.html)

I watched a video with a bad sound on my girlfriend's laptop. I used the built it equalizer presets to see if I could improve something. The sound manager process failed. The laptop is mute since then.

That's what I call a media experience.

Read the rest if you wanna have a laugh. Brooks bad-mouth Apple quite a lot there though, adds to the fun.

Technorati Tags: Brooks, Microsoft, Windows, iDiot, Vista, Multimedia

I was wrong, Chrome is NOT sharing 5% of the browser market. But 8% already !!

2008-09-17T00:08:00.001-07:00

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/16/update-on-techcrunch-reader-chrome-usage-trending-up-to-812/

It doesn't represent the whole market, of course. But it's pretty impressive.

I am impatient to see how it will evolve.

Apple wants to DRM your sneakers, your pants, your pets and possibly your family -in-law.

2008-09-16T04:39:00.000-07:00

Ok, the family in law is probably not for tomorrow. Nonetheless the sneakers are the real deal. Apple want to DRM them.

I read it on Slashdot ( - First Source here- ) a couple of hours ago, and I can't resist ranting over it. You'll have to understand that Apple owe me a surgery: I blow my diaphragm every time I read something about them.

But enough beating around the bush, here is the story :

In June 2006, Apple announces a new function for their iPods : a sensor paired with your Nike shoes which let your music player become your "personal trainer" (I wonder if the iThing iKicks you in the soft parts if you are not running fast enough).

Some shoes geeks have, of course, found a way to remove the sensor from its special "insole pocket" an place it wherever they'd want, including on other shoes.

Here comes the funny part: Apple don't like their things touched by other people, Apple don't like when user actually use their product, Apple like when their users keep their products in a frame and stare at it until they get iHigh.

So Apple apply for a patent to render such act of barbarism illegal, they DRM your shoes.

Sit down, and read that :

"Some people," the patent application observes, "have taken it upon themselves to remove the sensor from the special pocket of the [iPod-linked] Nike+ shoe and place it at inappropriate locations (shoelaces, for example) or place it on non-Nike+ model shoes."

It seems that they really consider getting half the planet against them.
Google builds open source products.
Amazon distributes DRM free mp3.
Sony, Philips, Intel and Microsoft amongst others, form a "Buy once play everywhere" alliance... And what does Apple do ?

Apple bundle Quicktime with iTunes (personal grudge here).
Apple air an extremely frustrating locked iPhone and a year after, air the same product just faster, cheaper, 3G capable and, yes with WPA2 problems (just Google it), and yes refusing third party applications because they could compete with their own.

And now they want to DRM your sneakers.

But hey, Digital Right Management is here to manage your rights after all...

Technorati Tags: Apple, iDiot, WTF,
DRM

Web 3.0: The Web as an Operating System - When your Internet (almost) replaces your computer.

2008-09-15T01:57:00.001-07:00

The Internet is going to turn out to be the new, universal, gigantic operating system everybody uses. Windows, MacOS and Linux are going to slowly die and fade to the status of shrunken hypervisors, whose only function will be either used as services or as virtual machines to support extended versions of our current browsers.

I was slow in the brain, I should have seen it coming way before. I have read a couple of articles, and finally opened my eyes to something so big that I couldn't see it without stepping back a couple of light-years.

What makes me think so ?

Well, first, the sparkle of revelation began gleaming in my synapses when I first read this post from Loose Wire Blog.

"Sharing Killed the bookmarks[...]RSS killed the bookmarks".

Clearly, the first thing that remained desperately attached to your computer when it came to internet (I am talking about the late 90's) has become sharable, search-able and mobile. This may not be a revolution when you look at it as "simply bookmarks", but we are now able to find back our whole knowledge pool (or work environment) anywhere, provided there is an Internet connection available.

Then there is this little sentence, almost an argument snippet : "In the same timeframe I marveled at how the Internet is the platform without a platform vendor. "
(I took it here, note how I am not ranting against the iPhone this time)

There it is, right ?

Look at the big thing:

Internet is one of the most standardized platform nowadays (although the standards are often bashed on the toes by either a blue E or an orange F).
It is becoming more and more interactive, allowing you to store data and preferences, to create documents and to share them.
Developing for the Web is easier than developing for an operating system.

Today, if I have a computer strong enough to bear a browser and a couple of plug-ins plus a descent access to the Web, I can :

Search for stuffs XD
Organize my information ( bookmarks, calendars, dictionaries, encyclopedias, images, videos...)
Share more or less everything digital (see above)
Produce data ( e-mails (duh!) , office documents, music, even pictures )
Play games
Communicate via chat, voice chat, or video chat
Watch movies, TV shows and listen to music or radio
And if it's not enough, I can access a whole range of virtual desktops

All of these without installing any other software than my web browser.

All I need more, in fact, is a nice hard disk to store the data I produce, in order to transfer them to an online storage service. The day this step is gone, I won't need anything but my browser. Web 3.0 ? (Just needed to coin this :D).

It's enough to convince myself, I may now go and study s'more JavaScript, Python and WhatEverOnRails hoping that one day I'll be able to write plug-ins for Chrome.

Technorati Tags: Internet, OS, Operating System, Web services, Web 2.0, Web 3.0

Unscrew the IPhone, Screw the user. Your IPhone is spying on you.

2008-09-12T02:46:00.001-07:00

You IPhone is spying on you ! Conspiracy again !

The new IPhone 3G is being released factory uncorked, faster, cheaper.
As usual, this is marvelous thing for the 1st version's buyers, knowing that the "cheaper" and "3G" tags could (should ?) have been implanted from the very beginning. But Nintendo does that too, these companies have their ways with their addicts.

Also, a little thing I just read on wired blogs retained my attention. I seems that the IPhone is potentially making screenshots of everything you do.

You just have to follow me here, not much effort to understand.

Some pieces of choice, from the same article :

"This flaw can only be exploited by somebody with physical access to a device, but your phone could get into the hands of someone with more malicious intent," [Jonathan Zdziarski ] said.

Zdziarski said this is only one way forensics experts collect evidence. Other methods include taking data from the iPhone's keyboard cache, Safari cache, Google Maps lookups and so on. Experts and hackers can also recover deleted photos or e-mails from months ago.

I spend an incredible amount of time finding a good keylogger to spy on my girlfriend, I'll just get her an IPhone.

Technorati Tags: IPhone, Apple, IDiot, Security, Hacking

About:Crome... Is there a plan behind the plan ?

2008-09-11T02:00:00.001-07:00

I am currently testing Chrome, as half a jazillion people might also be doing right now...

I do not know why, but this browser tends to freak me out.

First impression when I opened it : "Woah!". The interface is the allegory of sleekness, everything is neat, clean and blue; the browser looks like a toy, and as a toy, it's really easy to use.
Five minutes are enough to face the fact, Chrome is far from being one of these Chinese gadgets coming plated with...er...chrome, glistening to the eye but total pains in the neck to operate. Chrome is fast, Chrome is user friendly, Chrome renders perfectly the site I'm developing for IE and FF...

The concept underlying the interface is somewhat simple : remove the bloat. The developers did it in a quite brutal way, getting at first rid all the features and deciding afterward which one to include back in the UI. So goes, for instance, the status bar.

One will tend to think: "Well, Google is targeting the masses, a simple browser for users with no need of the bling bling."
To my mind one will be so terribly wrong.

Why so ?

I remember this year of 2000 when one of my teachers said " I like to use Google, I know it's just a runner-up but the interface is simple"
Stating the same about Chrome would be closing your eyes on History...

Think about it : The browser war is raging now between FF and IE who are getting together 90% of the market. The rest is shared between Safari, Opera, Konqueror and MyMarginalBrowser. If Google wanted to penetrate a market with 3% chances to get 2% of it, they would surely release a browser that's just a browser.

What makes me think this way ?

First of all, there are the Google Gears.

Gears was designed to be used on both Google and non-Google sites. A number of web applications currently make use of Gears, including two Google products: Google Reader and Google Docs.

This only, has to attract one's attention to what could be actually happening. Google Docs are not only targeting a mobile businesspersons audience, but MS Office as well. As the journalist Jeremy Wagstaff points out, word processors developers won't concentrate on redesigning the basics, and just keep updating (heavily) the interface. Google, nevertheless, is not trying to copy other desktop based application, their devs are just getting rid of the bloat.

The second reason why I suspect Google to be far more ambitious than just airing a browser is this :

First thing first, why a process manager in a web browser ? That's the geekish thing to do, and well, such a geekfruit was to be expected; but would there be another purpose ? If every tab is a separate process, what can this process host ? Only a web page, or much more than that ?

And, right to the right if it... what's that ? Doesn't it look like... a little something we already know in Firefox maybe? No plugins yet? Really? With this brand new V8 engine?

Chrome is open source, Chrome is polyvalent, Chrome will see plugins coming soon (just a hunch), Chrome is targeted to be not only a browser but a, let me coin the term, WOS -Web Operating System.

We have not seen the end of it. Mark me words capt'n.

Technorati Tags: Google, Google Gears, Browser, Web

Blackbeard, a black bearded pirate with a Black beard.

2008-02-01T02:12:00.000-08:00

I have a pretty good statistic tool. Gives me a lot of info about who comes around looking for what and so on.
It seems that, lately, pirates have become a trend.

I can't tell you why, I won't tell you, because I do not know.

Naught the less, I counted a whole bunch of people coming around to get to know Black Beard the Pirate. I cannot let them wander and spread their lost hope in the premise, lost hope is very hard to mop.

Thus I shall spare thou the pain o' look'ee to Google, ye see, an' give ye s'material to pirate with, and sink me.

Let us begin with some pick o' the ruffian :

Source : http://www.cindyvallar.com/LPBlackbeard.jpg

Source : http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/f/f1/Black-Beard.jpg

Source : http://mtvgames.typepad.com/mtv_video_games_blog/images/blackbeard.jpg

Source : http://www.portcities.org.uk/london/upload/img_400/PU2732.JPG

And now for ye, the websites, they are relevant or split me, with a curse.

At the North Carolina Maritime Museum

On Wikipedia

In an Online Game

National geographics

Heave O (with a curse) !

RIAA : fine, fine...

2008-01-30T02:10:00.000-08:00

Yup.

According to this article on slashdot, it seem that the magistrates are beginning to have enough of the RIAA masquerade.
Take a look :

"Angered at the RIAA's 'gamesmanship' in joining multiple 'John Does' in a single case without any basis for doing so, a Magistrate Judge in Maine has suggested to the presiding District Judge in Arista v. Does 1-27 that the record companies and/or their lawyers should be fined under Rule 11 of the Federal Rules, for misrepresenting the facts. In a lengthy footnote to her opinion recommending denial of a motion to dismiss the complaint (PDF, see footnote 5), Judge Kruvchak concluded that 'These plaintiffs have devised a clever scheme to obtain court-authorized discovery prior to the service of complaints, but it troubles me that they do so with impunity and at the expense of the requirements of Rule 11(b)(3) because they have no good faith evidentiary basis to believe the cases should be joined.' She noted that once the RIAA dismisses its 'John Doe' case it does not thereafter join the defendants when it sues them in their real names. Arista v. Does 1-27 is the same case in which student attorneys at the University of Maine Law School, "enthusiastic about being directly connected to a case with a national scope and significance", are representing undergrads targeted by the RIAA."

I suggest forcing the lads to listen to Brit's new single 2747 times per John Doe added. Migt cure their pre-Alzheimer though.

Free Procedural Graphics

2008-01-15T18:52:00.001-08:00

I got curious.

I had heard about procedural graphics, I had worked on procedural texture, but I got this impulse to go farther. I'm not quite a coder, frankly.
So when I got to try processing for Mac OS and Quartz composer, I found myself somewhat nonplussed.
No, definitely, I'm not a coder.

So where to find a software that could allow me to make some interesting patterns, fractals, grids, seamless textures and so on, without having to get through the whole C++ started book ?

I lost hope for a while, facingthe fact : I would be an uneducated procedural barbarian.

Then I stumbled upon a pretty little piece of software, cross platform and simple and requiring the very minimum knowledge in terms of programming Context Free.

A context free grammar is a description of a language in a set of rules. Each rule says how a single symbol can be expanded into a sequence of other symbols. Those symbols may, in turn, have rules and can be expanded again. Some symbols are terminals and have no rules. A legal sentence in the described language is a sequence of terminal symbols that can be produced starting with the start symbol of the grammar and proceeding via some sequence of expansions.

The process is considered context free because each expansion of a symbol via some rule can be done independently of any of the expansions of other symbols.

In Context Free, the only two terminals are the shapes CIRCLE and SQUARE. Given a starting shape, the program keeps expanding shapes that have rules until all that is left are terminal shapes, which are then drawn. In essence, the rendered images are legal sentences in the language described by the rules file!

source contextfreeart.com

After five minutes reading the documentation, I ended up doing this kind of pictures :

After some more tries, these

So, if you're a beginner in procedural graphics, give it a try. It's at least, a wonderful toy.

Up and Down in Singapore

2008-01-07T23:07:00.000-08:00

I had to go to Singapore. Stupid reason if any, just needed to extend my visa, as many westerners do when they live in Indonesia and want to stay a little bit more.

I remember the very first time I got there, six years ago, for the exact same thing. I had to stay 12 hours out of Nusantara to be allowed a new stamp on my passport. Having nearly no money at the time, I tryed to sleep at the airport, in the arrival hall. A failure, it was. My poor thin t-shirt couldn't keep me warm in this giant seats-provided freezer, I couldn't close my eyes. I read "The Lord of the Rings" during the whole 12 hours.

The agent's place was near Fort Canning, and I took the 4 hours this man needed to fill the papers to take a nap, on a stone bench, somewhere in a park. "The Lord of The Rings" is perfect as a pillow, if you are tired enough.

Back to the archipelago, I thought and wished this would be my very last experience in Singapore. I was so wrong that the second time I got there, I felt even more a bum than six years before.

Planned to be a quick one day round trip from Jakarta. Never plan a quick one day round trip, except to your mom's house.
Same motive again, this time the agent was in Jakarta, and told me that, with the help of The Magic Telex, I just needed to signal my kingly presence to the embassy which, in exchange, would provide me with the Magic Sticker, bows, smiles, rivers of milk and honey, 10$ and a Mars bar.

All I received there was some guy frowning hard, saying "No sir, it will take three days sir, whatever your Wizard told you back there".
Three days indeed my good monsieur, with in my pocket enough cash for half a day and not spare clothes.
The whole of it was very exciting, knowing that a Word Something Gathering occupied all the hotels under 6 billions SGD a night.
On the other hand, walking from Orchard Street to Cina Town is indeed an healthy activity, and slacking all day on a bench is equally funny. Especially with yesterday's panties on.

Fortunately I went out of the mess safe, thanks to Sadrini, Robin and Western union.

The next time, I was ready. Clothes (too much), Cash (never enough), Shopping list (I you knew), and a cheap hotel I found on the web.
Of course the website's rates were wrong. And Sadrini was not at her job so I couldn't say a proper thank you, and I forgot Robin's name card. Minor things.
Minor because this last trip was all in all extremely agreeable, for various reasons.

First of all, being an urban creature, I loved wandering aimlessly untill I lose myself somewhere, and lose myself somewhere again trying to get back. I loved trying the local transportation system, a wonderfull thing if you understand that : "*&^^&&&&***&&&&&*", texto from the bus driver's mouth, actually mean "I have no change for your cash".

Most of all, I enjoyed Geylang. For those who know the place, you are already thinking I am either mad, or a pervert, or both.
Travelling on the cheap has always been my way, living on the cheap, often. I know places much worse than keylang, believe me.
Yes it is a repair of bandits, harlots, punks and whatnots. But it's alive, day and night, flowing with an uninterupted stream of people. Not the polished and varnished crew you can find at Orchard, but basic deck-apes like myself (Monkey, at your service), and for the taking, they don't look at you with beady eyes when you smile.

As any "newcommer" I did the mistake to order undrinkable drinks and unedible food and, exclaiming myself in Indonesian "Ampun, apaan tuh ? Pokok atau lauk atau apa ?" I instantly made friends with the 4 jakartanese at the next table. Two seamen, accompanied by two women. We spoke of the flood in Kebun Nanas, of Fauzi Bowo and the fallen military aircraft of the week, we drank smoked and laughed at lot (all three, pepsi for me please). Apenk showed me the backstreet, where prostitutes literally clawed at my arms, longing to give me a "good massagee" and a pimp came to me to describe the goods. " I am from Jakarta man, there the girls pay me for the massagee " said I, which actually made marvel getting me rid of him, sometimes being a Bule (Gweylo, Whity, white-ever lah !) helps, I guess.

Then Nur and I had a talk, this girl, in her early thirties, had been arrested some years ago for smuggling marijuana (thinking that pot is legal in Holland, it always surprises me...) and was now used by the police as an indic. Not that bad a job, said she, you can enjoy your drinks, and if there is a problem, adik, you can still call me, people here are affraid of me.

The next day I sleep in. You might find it strange, but I spent the night chatting with my best friend far away in France. For the first time in probably a year, I have been able to see his face. Internet and phonecalls are cheap in Singapore, as opposed to transportations and food. The total opposite of Jakarta. I wonder if it's a sign of a country's developpment level.
A Frenchman laughting his throat off in a singaporean cybercafe, that's somthing worth picturing, at least givent the was the other customers looked at me.

Not having much to do, I called Nur. I actually had a problem : being bored and in the need of a guide. Good company for half a day I must say. She drove me everywhere, spending nonetheless the most of our time in Bugis Street, the biggest consommatorium of the area. I was wondering : do the local people dress well because they can afford expensive clothes, or are the good looking clothes cheap? The latter was encoutered in a kind of close market, I wished I were on holidays, with a huge budget, a huge backpack; enought to buy the whole place. I got myself a hat...who cares.

At the time we got back to Geylang, Nur confessed she didn't like to take the bus, too often crowded, too often crowded of sweat-smellig people she can't stand the smell of.

Phone call.

She cannot get back home. There would be a sweep soon, untill 3 in the morning. They would be looking for "illegal prostitutes", the working outdoor, and something tells me that Nur the she-bandit didn't want to get near the blue van. We sat, we smoked, we drank. We fell silent, it was 3 in the morning. Time enough to pack and have a nap. I never sleep much.

And here I am now, waiting im the airport, as usual I came way too early. One more day here would be the death of me, that is, of my poor wallet, so no missed flight please.

As long as I recall, the time I spent in Geylang was the best in Singapore so far, you might find it candid, mad or plain stupid to like a place crowded with prostitutes and tatooed rascals. But well, if that makes me a deck-ape too, so be it.

Long gone ?

2007-12-24T01:58:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmass ans so on, so I am a little absent, procrastinating, slacking, and lacking a proper internet connection...

I'll be back and stuff, and merry end of the year untill then, and stuff...

Microsoft.getprofit(OLPC)

2007-12-07T04:36:00.001-08:00

Great. You already knew that the XO laptop was bad for health, but prepare for the best, Microsoft wants to make it expensive too !

According to this article on slashdot :

"Microsoft general manager ... Utzschneider says a shrunken version of Windows XP could potentially run on 2 Gbytes of flash memory. The XO, however, can only hold 1 Gbyte. As a result, Microsoft wants the XO's designers to add a slot through which more memory can be added via a secure digital (SD) card, Utzschneider said. Microsoft's renewed interest in participating in OLPC might be viewed by skeptics as an admission that a rival offering for developing markets called Classmate — which uses an Intel processor on Microsoft software — has failed to catch on."

"So, like, let's upgrade the hardware of the cheapest laptop ever in order to make it altogether more expensive and profitable for us, the kids can wait.

I mean,like, what reasonably good OS can fit on only 1GB ?

And, yes, this poor kids out there should share our values on, like, you know, intellectual property, copyright, and of course, open source. Because open source is, like, you know, evil, right ?"

Er.. eh... No ?

Let's all slap Utzschneider thrice and hand it to his mama.

Technorati Tags: Microsoft, OLPC, Idiots, WTF

Hate the kindle together.

2007-12-05T00:35:00.001-08:00

You've read me before, you might know I don't really understand the Kindle buzz.

I've been a bit farther than wandering round the bush, and took a look at he the licence agreement and terms of use.

Now I'm (almost) scared, and if anything, really puzzled. And mildly berzerk, too.
See by yourself :

Amazon grants you the non-exclusive right to keep a permanent copy of the applicable Digital Content and to view, use, and display such Digital Content an unlimited number of times, (1)solely on the Device or as authorized by Amazon as part of the Service and solely for your personal, non-commercial use.
[...]
(2)You may not sell, rent, lease, distribute, broadcast, sublicense or otherwise assign any rights to the Digital Content or any portion of it to any third party, and you may not remove any proprietary notices or labels on the Digital Content.
[...]
Annotations, bookmarks, notes, highlights, or similar markings you make in your Device are (3) backed up through the Service. Information we receive is subject to the Amazon.com Privacy Notice.

(1) Whould it mean that I cannot transfer my e-books from a Kindle to another ? What if I want to transfer my files before reselling the thing ? What if I want to back them up ?

(2) ~~Would it mean that~~ I can't share my readings anymore ? Information, culture, literature, all that in a plastic hermetic vault for the sole use of him who pays ? I have always bought used books, and more often than never, I've given them away for my great pleasure, the pleasure of sharing. I would have to give it all away and pay for it ? Oh, and, probably, forget anything about the Kindle replacing school manuals.

(3) Amazon lives in a wonderful world where Amazon decides of our rights to share culture and knowledge, and uses the information we send them at will. Amazon has a caring eye, who will lead us to better readings, and eventually Amazon will know us better than our own family without us asking.

Here are is the privacy notice they provide, since I didn't find a world about the Kindle, I still don't know if buying it gives them the right to eavesdrop our phone lines.

What really disgusts me is the copywrong mentality creeping under every aspect of our culture. We've had trouble with music, movie, softwares... and now, the only thing left with less issues than usual, the very medium that freed the masses and spread consciousness among mankind, the book, is targeted not only with venal intentions but also the will to control and monitor.

I am not completely afraid, since DRM based content's success is currently free-falling, and users seem to have had enough with this kind of totalitarian restrictions. Nontheless, I wouldn't use this device even if it was given away.

As a bonus, I give you this very interesting link about the Kindle, 1984 and our rights as readers, this other link to amazon's return policy, and a new logo that would really fit them if it didn't take two "Z" (yes I am currently being irritated, and I blow my nose at the Godwin point).

Technorati Tags: Kindle, totalitarism, 1984, Amazon

Sleepless

2007-11-29T20:46:00.001-08:00

Beep.

It never does that. Why tonight ?

Beep.

It won't stop.

Beep.

All right, I understand. I need to get up and replug the ungodly machine. A handset. I thought I had tamed it quite long ago, connectivity, multimedia volume, whatever. Tonight, just tonight it doesn't want to stay still, and a bad contact on the charger makes it beep every other minute...

I wouldn't mind otherwise, but my eyes won't open, my legs are heavy and my jaw hurts so bad I feel my teeth being slowly pushed out of it. And I really need to sleep, every single minute counts, I really need to sleep.

Beep.

My glasses are nowhere, my room is a dark blur. Follow the light Danny.

Beep.

SHUT UP ! Here, fixed. Back to bed.

I am dripping wet, I've been sweating a river. Drinking several liters of water during the day can't get me quenched, but hell, by night it makes me King Of Sweatville. No way I'd go for a shower, everything is so messy in my sleepy head I could drawn in the bathroom. Sleep, sleep, sleep.

Clang.

The guy next door. He was gone, now back. Fat chance Mr Heavylids, this one is the noisy type. Slams the doors, stomps the floor, his tinkly keyring announcing the venue of the Fairy Hangover.
As usual, as soon as he enters his room, he fires up the TV. Sometime I wonder if he carries his remote around to turn the noisebox on before unlocking his lair. Sometimes I wonder why the hell he doesn't turn the damn thing off when he leaves the place. Yet another candidate for the home global warming contest. Not that he cares, he has a fan. I know he does, since I hear it spinning from my bed. All night, along with the night workers's hammer bangs from the construction site a block away.

Krkrkrkr.

Now now. Mister has the munchies. Cheetos or whatever. Fumbling in the plastic bag. Krkrkrkr.
I try to relax. After all I was sleeping sound before he came back, there is no reason I couldn't do it again.

The funny paradox is the wall separating our rooms.
Probably thirty centimeter of concrete. When I try the neighbor Morse code and throw whatever end of my limbs at it in order to express a polite yet determined request for him to respect the "shut up after 2 a.m." curfew, it has for sole consequence to wake me up a little more. Pain. Enters the paradox : no I can hear him burping.
Behind my closed eyes, colored shapes are moving, I feel myself slowly sinking... do that... sleep, sleep, sleep.

Beep Beep Beep

What now ? Text message, at three in the morning ? Whoever is sending it, I pledge to spend my credits up the the very last one in the kind of bible-long reply you can type with a touch-screen keyboard and a cut-paste function.
Or maybe it's important. An accident ? At that time of the night, you never know. I'd better check it out.

From : Colleague -7.30 p.m. -
"I am waiting for you in the lobby"

This one got tangled in the network, and since it was late already it probably decided to have a coffee break before getting in my phone. My phone, my evil phone from hell, plotting against my sweet nights of rest.

Burp.

Now, I have a choice. Try asking politely One Man Band Noisinsky next door to kindly stop any sound-disturbance-generating-activities, snap as soon as he moves a muscle and behead him with his own door handle, or read a book.

Wait, I am a white guy, in Jakarta, in the middle of a place I'd better not describe. TV-Dude doesn't really scare me, he is small, bony, drowsy... What scares me is the posse I'd gather if I'd begin shouting.
Dear Santa, this year I would like a flame thrower.

Burp.

Doctor, give him a Book, quick, we are loosing him.

One day. I will sleep.
One day.

Technorati Tags: jakarta, insomnia, noise

Amazon Kindle : Why ?

2007-11-22T03:40:00.001-08:00

source : xconomy.com

This e-book concept has always more or less amazed me.

To me, a book, good old stack of paper, glue and ink, is one of the most reliable way to keep your data. I have home books dating from the 19th century and still in a good shape.

So, when I see how the Kindle sells out after 5 and a half hour, I wonder.

Why buying a product (the reader) that can let you buy another product (the book) on a limited network where the admins can revoke your rights to read if you misbehave when you can go to a bookstore and pick some good writing for cheaper and for ever ?

Why bother to fire up a device and struggle with an UI when you can just unfold some real pages ?

Why would you get a device that can hold a zillion books when you will read a book a week ?

Why buying a device that can only read e-books when, for the same price, you can get a device, say, a big screen PDA, that can do the same job plus so many other things ?

Why taking the risk of losing a zilion books while dropping the device in the bathtub when you still can save the real thing after such a drama ?

I see a "because" : replacing reference work and schoolbooks with this kind of devices, much easier to carry around.
Still, you can get a XO laptop for cheaper...

I won't ever buy this kind of thing to my use that's a real waste of money

Technorati Tags: Amazon, Kindle, Amazon Kindle, ebooks

Tabloids Never Die. Privacy Does -Megan Meier related-

2007-11-21T21:11:00.000-08:00

[UPDATE] : The link to another article on wired, as last time, interesting comments.

Yes, yes, yes there are much blogs over the web discussing this sad story. But god I'm still mad.

Two post below you already can read about it, how mad I feel.

Unfortunately it's not getting any better. The debate is shifting, the debate has shifted, from a point where everybody was so sad for little Megan, to a point where everybody was so angry at the Vile Perpetrators, to this and this.

This website is the most awesome slice of horse manure I've stumbled upon since ages.

Mind you, I've been browsing the Web for more or less 10 years now, and I've seen disgusting things, revolting things, and these posts are in my top 10.

They give themselves the pseudonyms of "Exposer" or "Fighter", and they think are the heralds of truth and justice. Under the cover of I don't know what kind of devious moral, they walk all over the private life of persons who'd probably be better of left alone, be them victims or offenders.

Not only they are coming out with ugly templated tabloid-like blogs, not only the content goes as far as reporting supermaket encounter, home family talk and other lame-candies, but they are making a MAJOR mistake.

These irresponsible self proclaimed truth seekers are airing the accused couple's PHONE NUMBER ! I am losing my french here, you just don't do that !

You are actually encouraging as many people as can to behave exactly as the "predators" you brag about denouncing on your ugly page ? Have you lost your common sense if you ever had any ?

There are actually many websites about internet security awareness, may it be technical or common, hoaxbusters, honeynets, HITB, Safety.com, wiredsafety... many are professional at heart and I'd get miserable reading your cowbows blogs if I were one of these website's admins.

So, here and now, for the obvious rage, devious moral, call for hate, privacy disclosure and tabloidism, I let the word know that cyberpath blog and theexposer blog are thrown in my shamelist under the "not even funny" tag.

And I'll make sure that my friend's kids keep away from these places.

Technorati Tags: douchebag, privacy, terrorism, megan, megan meier, WTF, sad, tabloid

Conpiracy Theory number 851 267 : XO laptop to keep our kids authists.

2007-11-20T19:48:00.001-08:00

If you haven't heard yet of the OLPC project, take a look in here.

To my mind, this is inevitable, knowledge must be shared in order to build a better word.

But then I stumbled across an alarming headline : WiFi frequency could accelerate the apparition of our kid's autism.

Now I see what it is all about. WiFi powered XO laptop take over the world and numb our kids. That's all Google's fault.

Bloggers turn into mob terrorists -Megan Meier Related-

2007-11-18T22:36:00.001-08:00

I can't seem to get on with the "wisdom of the masses", I just can't. After all, what differentiate us from ants and bees is that we are sentients as individuals...

Long post, so, as usual I'll use bulletpoints.

Megan Meier's case is all over the web since someone has divulged names the press ket anonymous.
The case is surrounded by heinous mob like behavior.
People still don't understand that the real problem is not Internet, which is a medium, but the bullies themselves.
Take care of your kids.

Now there is this story, running all over the web. About this poor 13-year-old girl, Megan, who did something she really shouldn't have done, hanging herself that is, after having been cyber bullied, receiving heinous messages on her myspace page.

That's a sad case. We see here that the growth of technology and communication doesn't help when it comes to rabid bullies. Especially when the bullies are grown adults.

So, yes, my cyber-consolations to the family. Sad stuff.

Wait.

I'm not done yet and actually I'm quite furious. Since some smartasses found right to divulge the name of the aforementioned presumed bullies, while the paper where the story first appeared did it's journalistic professional job by protecting the incriminated ones. ( Cyber-wanabe-detective score 1, individual freedom 0.)
Yet, more frightening are the comments left on the article I just linked to, these writings make me think of angry mob looking for a fresh lynchee.

Some people there are pleasing themselves with their personal investigations and, quoting themselves as "people closely following the case" are airing informations that should be left confidential, nope, left alone. Who are them to reconstruct the case before the whole world's eyes ? Are them from the police or the government ? Are they just average joes trying to have their ten minutes of glory ? Well, I don't really care since what they are doing is nothing but a bid for personal fame through personal and dubious investigations. Where I come from , France, they could be sued for either breaking professional secrecy or for "appeal to social hate" or something like that. Do they, and the people reacting on the website, even know all the details of the case ?

We are on Internet though, and there is nothing much to do, I just call them terrorists : their own method for their own ideals against whatever may come, shall it be personal privacy, common sense or the law, "hang'em" in texto.

Just for the sake of it, I'll give my point of view, looking at the story with some more distance :

A teenager commit suicide. According to these figures , it happened broadly 4 600 times over the year 2004 in the US. That's more than 10 plane crash.

Given these figures, what else do we know ?

We are all conscious of the teenage violences (or are we ?), may them be moral or physical.
Bullying get have extreme consequences.
Harassment methods follow the technology (phone harassment, without a phone ? What about SMS harassment ?)
Young teens DO need attention

I am sorry to write that, but given all objectivity, this case is not really something new. Adults are involved, yes, but we are not even sure of who really sent the heinous messages...

What about the girl's environment ? Did she really get all the attention she needed ? Was her Internet browsing monitored ? Did she have other relational problems ?

Did she see someone ? Yes you read me, did she see a shrink ? When you come to kill yourself because of a bunch of written insults on a web page, it is clear that you must have shown some signs of depression before.

The real problems are coming in with these questions. People still don't know much about teen's behavior, neither do they about the Web. This, more than anything, is to be taken in consideration.
Had the girl been advised to blacklist the bully or to create a new account, what would have happened ?

Let me be clear on that : I don't intend to decrease the responsibility of the perpetrator, what this or these persons did doesn't have a name and is clearly disgusting.

However it only represents one side of the problem, hanging them will not change anything, and playing cyber cowboy will only make the problem worse since it only show Netizen's lack of responsibility and depth of view.

Beside, people are dying everyday, and nobody cares before it gets quoted in some paper. This sad reality is even more painful to look at when you see that, for a monstrous behavior, people react as monster. Hang'em.

Why don't you guy unite and organize a huge fund raising, and then fund a teenagers internet watch-and -educate association ?
It is much more complicated than just lynching a couple of disturbed guys, but opposed to the latter, it might eventually have a positive result.

Here also comes a debate: bloggers have been granted press protection, that's already famous. But here and now I really come to wonder if this precedent is a good thing, since being a journalist is a full time job implying the use of a given etiquette, and these people being completely disrespectful of it.

I might conclude with a some hints for you parents :

- Monitor your kid's activities
- Teach them not to believe what's written by a complete stranger on a notoriously messy social networking website. (don't take candies from a stranger)
- Keep in mind that internet can be armful and that a 13, 14,17 year old or even above is still a kid...
- Internet is a medium, meaning that you'll find the same people doing the same things as in real life, plus the cover of anonymity, remember that.

Feel free to comment.

Technorati Tags: Megan, Megan Meier, cyber-bullying, bullying, mob, terrorism, ewb, teenagers, idiot.

Blackberry Punch Drunk Patent

2007-11-16T03:10:00.000-08:00

First, slightly off topic : Got in holidays, then got sick then got busy. Basically stopped using internet for about a couple of weeks. I don't know if I have any reader at all, but if someone, may it be a south manchester one eyed platypus with a sight impairment, missed me, I apologize since I might do it again if ever I get to have a day off in the next five years.

That said, here comes one stupid lawsuit. Good catch , read here

Research In Motion, the maker of the BlackBerry smartphones, has filed a lawsuit against LG Electronics claiming that LG's Black Label smartphone violates the BlackBerry trademark...says the name of the LG phone is "confusingly similar" to the BlackBerry.

Ok, LG, I have some suggestions for your future lawsuits.

Try this one :

Black Beard, close enough uh ?

Don't like big blue?

Black Bird, still with a lot a B's and I'm sure about its connectivity.

Don't like flying ?

So stop getting high on this one then...

Seriously, if thing keep on going this way, someday in the not-so-far future nobody will be able to patent anything and everything about intellectual property will turn to be just like in good old mother China...

Technorati Tags: WTF, stupid, blackberry, LG, black label, copyright, lawsuits

if(BCS.conference.daysleft==0){MoveTo(office, Danny);}

2007-10-31T22:43:00.001-07:00

So ends the BCS

Just a little word to say I'm back to business after the BCS. Good big fat conference with very interesting topics. Captivated by the DDoS scandinavian case and mind blown (literally) by the Grucq and Fiodor Yaroshkin, whose speeches were way above my understanding.

I learned many thing there, amongst these are the fact that i MUST use gel for my hair, that hotel food can actually be more than correct and that all universities should move in to 5 stars hotels and turn their programs in a neverending conference, so I could have a PhD and free food in the same time.
Of course I also learned the importance of NTP in IT forensics, the way to visualize log files without nosebleeds and that I'd better learn everything about IPv6 as soon as possible, for, people, it's coming sooner than you think.

I'm also positively reinforced in my opinion that Geeks are Teh Powah. All these speakers were professionals with many years of experiences, and no one ever got cocky or braggy. I can assure you that they know how to joke and they know how to have fun, pictures soon.

Big huge deep fried hail to Fiodor, Ben, Raphy, Der Mighty Grugq, Roberto, Frederick, Cedric and all the froggy french gang and big thanks to evil Zboralski for the whole stuff.

More to come, stay tuned.

Of bottles, cats, and good video games.

2007-10-26T03:33:00.001-07:00

Long story, bullet points needed :

Being a gamer is about instinct
Good games are made for cats
Fun is where you find it
Not liking Quake 3 doesn't make you a bad gamer

I love Video Games.

I've been playing them since I was 7, beginning with a SEGA master system, mind boggled by such awesome graphics and sounds, and I haven't changed with the years.

However, my way to get hitched to a particular game has rather evolved since then, graphics are the least I care about.

I had, in the beginning, something to do with instinct. When I was offered to chose between the very first episode of Sonic the Hedgehog and a rather nice but not quite half the fun adaptation of Asterix, I didn't decide upon which one was best looking or fastest scrolling, Sonic just felt good.

Since then, I can say that I rarely screwed up choosing a game, even when it was an obscure and almost unknown title, I'd make the right choice. My rule of the thumb is simple : try the game for 10 minutes maximum. If you don't wanna jump up and down of excitement, don't buy it.

That said, when I am browsing gaming community bulletin boards around the web, I often stumble across this killer statement : "You are not a true gamer."

What in the world is a true gamer ? Well here is my own personal point of view : A cat.

Have you ever remarked how cats tend to play with almost everything ? If it sounds or looks or moves nice enough, Mr Cat will spend minutes playing with it, may it be its own tail, he does not care.

The point being : cats knows how to extract the fun from where it lyes, and so do Gamers.

My ADD has led me to behave more or less like the fluffy ones, either sleeping or playing. Here is an example :

Come into my room and you'll find an empty whiskey bottle.

Well, I don't drink alcohol (anymore), and I am not a bottle collector, so why the hell is this bottle in my room ? Just for fun boss, just for fun. Ever heard of "bar juggling" ?
That's where the fun is, in a bottle.

A bottle doesn't have a good VGA card.

A bottle doesn't have surround sound.

A bottle doesn't have amazing cut scenes (unless you smash it in you own hand, then the intrinsic dramatic intensity unleashes).

A bottle can let you play with it until you feel your arms falling off.

Just now I went for a smoke, and my buddy and I had a ten minute broom-balancing-on-your-finger session, that's what fun is about.

When I choose a video game, I follow the same scheme as when I chose a "toy". What about the instant fun, the replayability, what will it demand from my actual skills ? When I play it, will I be completely absorbed by it ? Will I improve any of my "real life skills" with it ? Will it influence my mood in a positive way ? What about creativity ? And the most important : Does it challenge me ?

In short, to my mind, a good game is supposed to let you do things your way, to let you experiment as you like and give you the possibility to do a bit more than what it's supposed to.

Like a bottle.

A Gamer will be the natural counterpart to such a game, for she will look for "What can I do more that just following the line ?".

Like a cat.

Sadly enough, I have found only few games matching the criteria above. I have found only few games that immerse me so deeply that I'll forget to sleep or to eat.

You are already thinking that World Of Warcraft could do the trick, since people can even suffer from dehydration as a consequence of playing it too much.

But no, the rush for XP and virtual fame isn't appealing. Once I leave the game, I've gained nothing. My mood is not better, and I won't carry anything "outside" the game. And for the taking I'm not looking for an alternate life.

In the other hand, Quake 3 Arena is, according to my standards, an awesome load of fun. You want to be a basic berserker, off you go, you want to find the unreachable place in the map, find a way to stand on it and be a sleazy sniper, be free. You don't need to be a shooter expert to have instant in game fun, the multiplayer mode is thrilling and there are plenty of mods available. Quake 3 is still played by many people.

Another game that caught my attention is Toribash. I've always like the "beat em up" genre, since when it's well done it appeals to real life skills such as reflexes and timing. I've never seen a good real life fighter being bad at fighting games.
Toribash basically let you do anything you want to. The learning curve is a bit tough, but once you understand the concept, you can have a win over long time players. You will never find a guy who's able to do an instant kill because he
has built his avatar with XP steroids. The same move always cause the same amount of damage. As in real life, a garden wrestler will suffer deep humiliation versus a professional boxer but feel at ease against a total newbie; and a fast learner will climb to the top aided only by it's understanding.

These game both have a very basic technical level, no real eye or ear candy, but a rock solid gameplay that let the player evolve by himself.

Last but not least, it's also a question of taste.

How can you play a game that doesn't match your tastes ? How can you blame someone not playing something she just doesn't like ?
I've been reading comments sounding like : "You don't like Mario/Resident Evil/Quake 3, then you probably don't like video games"

What if I am tired of seeing a plumber and his clique having taken over my game console in a kart, on a basketball/soccer/tennis/golf field or in a fighting game since 1984 ? What if zombies are in my opinion the worst and stupidest element to include in any medium ? What if I hate guns, real or virtual ?

Well, in fact, nothing is wrong about it, I won't harass you if you don't eat meat, and you won't harass me if I don't like Mario, and we'll give each other a break.

I think I've said it all, I'm back to my bottle, have some serious juggling to do.

Technorati Tags: video games, games, gamer, good games

What if Mail Company cancels your private mail ?

2007-10-22T20:46:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning, and after a nice hot shower I went to my mailbox to check my mail.

Waiting a heavy set of books for my favorite novelist, and I'd fancy beginning to read one of them with my breakfast.

Since I was not really in a rush when I my friend sent them over, I went with the slow routing option, low priority.

But when I went to my mailbox, nothing was there.

I did some inquiries and I found out that the books were returned to the sender before getting in my mailbox.

"We did that because, see, you should have used the express service, you box was generating too much effort for the service you used, it was not profitable. Of course it's not in the contract, but we just prevent customer from doing it because it's not good for our profit."

This story is fictional, indeed.

But the following story is not, and much resembling.

"Comcast is forging packets in order to interfere with its customers' use of BitTorrent", Gnutella and maybe Lotus Note

What's funny is the fact that they don't do that to "fight der bad usars", since the torrent protocol is also used to distribute "legal" content.

They are doing it to save money, ladies and gentlemen. See, if you trust the experiments they ar only blocking the traffic when the torrent/gnutella node are comcast to non comcast.

Why ? Because internal traffic is less expensive for them than external traffic.

Yet another episode of Money Vs Freedom

Technorati Tags: comcast, isp, torrent, gnutella, WTF

Shame In Rainbows

2007-10-22T05:47:00.001-07:00

Long, again, so... bullet points :

Last Radiohead album is available for free
Still, people torrent the songs using a wide range of arguments
This fact reinforce the idea that user are "bad" as well as not giving credits to he band's endeavor.

For those who haven't followed last week's news, In Rainbows is the last album from the band Radiohead.

This album has the particularity to be available online, at whatever price you want to pay.
(The first time I got the news it was there)

Yup, you've read it right. You can chose to pay nothing, it wont matter.

So why haven't I been blogging about that before ? Because I wanted to know what it was all bout, I wanted to see what would happen before going down the street and scream in frenetic ataraxia.

Well I was right, now I have something more consistent to blog about than "music revolution whatever".
That's true, this process is a revolution, it's a first time, and it's much more responsible than saying "Meh dun like der copywait, meh frienleh singar".

But then, this page tell me that an uber lot of people are doing nothing with the so called revolution and downloading it via torrent as just another Nelly Furtado single.

Woah, that's a lot of polemic here. And I see a lot of arguments, pro and cons, and to me mind a whole lot of it are definitely shallow and hypocritical, particularly the pro torrent.

Pros torrent says : You have to pay anyway, a small minimum fee but you have to pay.

What the... ? Where have you been to download the stuff ? I did it, right, just to see if it was right, and you don't have to pay a dime. It's FREE !

Or maybe you are talking about the CD shipped version. Well, you don't expect them to pay the handling fees do you ?

Pros torrent says : The compression is only 160kbps.

Yeah, and for free, over the internet (Do you know that traffic is not free ? Do you know they, Radiohead, actually pay for it while you are complaining ?). What do you want more, a chocolate bar and a goodnight kiss ?

Pros torrent says : The site was overloaded, difficult, and they asked to many personal info.

That's the "best of the best... of the best, with honors" So you couldn't try ? I've been there and anybody with more patience than the basic hyperactive puppy can download the stuff. There is a minor cookie problem, but I assume that if you disabled them you know why you did it and how to enable them back, right ?

Then if the site was really that slow, you couldn't wait a week to get the tune ? Really, were you so starving ? If you are such a huge fan why don't you order the disk ?

And don' say anything about the personal info, it's not as if they checked on it, visiting you at night to ask you questions...

Pros torrent says : You are missing the point, they don't care if you torrent it.

Obviously we are.

Can I call you airhead ?

Don't you see that the RIAA and a lot of stupid media are targeting the users ? Do you forget that the WE are the people looked at as pirates ? So that's how we must show the industry we are responsible ? Even if we have the possibility to get something for free, we have to show an obvious lack of respect to the band as well as reinforcing the idea that Usars Is Der Evil ?

Someone said that they would have done better to provide a torrent link on the page with a donation box.

Well they didn't and that's their choice.

All I know, and you can give any argument you like, is that :

You are not paying them any tribute but getting their music by torrent, you are just acting as if it was another major's p00p
You are attracting the eyes of all the MAFIAA and all the people that thing we should charge 220.000$ for a bunch of songs regardless of if you are a parallel industry magnate or a single mother.

So don't complain next time someone says or writes about users being irresponsible, because now this is a proved fact.

Wake up people !

Technorati Tags: music, radiohead, mafiaa, torrent, p2p

Robotic idiocraty

2007-10-21T21:22:00.001-07:00

I've been working in the humanitarian field for some month, and I've never regretted it. Especially because you will never see something like : A bag of rice gone crazy kills 9.

But here is an example of really misused money : a robot cannon kills 9 and wounds 14.

What the deuce ? Next time you evil scientists want to spend money, try emergency/post disaster civil engineering, it won't hurt so bad ! And if you really are looking for a new toy get an Ipod or something, something that won't shoot your neighbors.

Sorry to be sore.

Technorati Tags: WTF, army, idiot, waste, not funny

I can has free Iphone !

2007-10-17T02:12:00.001-07:00

Here it goes !

I haven't had time to sleep much and I want to go to bed right now (if not right here).

BUT I cannot let it pass : The Iphone will finally get unscrewed !

Seems that 800 millions USD lawsuits work. If not for wasting pocket money, it can ruin a reputation.

Why didn't they understand it earlier ? I mean, today you make a mistake, tomorrow half the web talks about it. Maybe Steevie should get a good RSS reade.