linux-2.6.19 just came out, and it includes a fun little patch from Ashok Raj at Intel for physical CPU hotplugging. As someone that just tries new stuff in the kernel at home just for the sake of experimentation, this one just sounds dangerous, and well… fun too.
Too bad I don’t have any SMP x86_64 systems to try this out on.
Chumby and Reverse Engineering
I had quite an adventure getting out to USC from West LA while out of town Tuesday night. I thought it might have been possible to take a bus or subway to get around the area; boy was I wrong as could be. It really made me realize the abundance and scope of accessible public transit in the Bay Area and just how much I took that for granted.
I ended up taking a cab both ways which cost me plenty, but the talk was *totally* worth it.
Andrew “bunnie” Huang talked about reverse engineering and the tech and ethics behind it. The rest of the talk was about his new company that’s he’s starting called “Chumby“. They’re brewing up a cool little beanbag-sized … thing. It’s like an alarm clock on some heavy steroids. It uses these nifty little flash widgets to grab and display all kinds of media and content from the Internet. And the best part about the whole thing is designed to be open in every way; from the fabric patterns for the bag to the hardware schematics for the boards and the code running them. There’s only a couple places that will have to be secret: a co-processor that’ll do some crypto functions to securely exchange some authentication credentials and perhaps some portions of the schematic that may include some WLAN designs released under NDA from Marvell. It’s a very different business model that I’ll be interested to follow.
As far as hackability goes, it’s got tons of potential. I’d really like to build some nifty ubicomp projects around the house with some prototypes, so I’ll just have to ask politely 
I did find a cool potential exploit at LAX on my way back. I had some amazing travel luck and had a few hours before my flight to bum around the airport. I found some outlets to plug in, but there was no free wifi to be found. They did have some pay-per-use setups through Boingo Wireless and TMobile at a Starbucks kiosk, and well, I couldn’t justify dropping 25 bucks for an hour or so of wireless access.
Let’s just say that captive portal software doesn’t grab *everything*.
Hopefully there’ll be some code to follow shortly.
Looks like the DNA Lounge has got a fun new toy.
However, only IPs on the DNA’s network can post. So I guess I’ll just have to bicycle by tonight and give it a shot.
I must say that the goings-on and the inside and infrastructure of this place just intrigues me endlessly, and only makes me wish harder and harder that I could actually go in one of these days.
Minor update:
I couldn’t see any beacons or associate to their AP from out front or any of the alleys near the back. 
But for the curious, here’s the airodump listing for those interested:
BSSID PWR Beacons # Data CH MB ENC ESSID
00:0D:93:82:C4:76 104 13 0 5 54 WEP? cynsabeans
00:14:BF:0E:96:B1 104 16 1 9 11 WPA
00:18:3F:D1:2F:59 102 1 0 3 54. WEP? 2WIRE516
00:14:BF:13:36:6B 100 10 0 6 48 OPN Kent
00:40:96:45:92:91 99 2 0 6 11 OPN
00:11:24:02:54:47 99 3 0 5 54 WEP? cynsabeans
00:14:6C:79:15:F4 94 1 0 7 48 WEP? radium01-g
00:14:6C:4D:7E:56 -1 0 1 11 -1 WPA
00:11:24:0B:D0:8D 96 2 0 1 54 WEP? jsphoto
00:16:B6:0C:C7:6A 97 8 0 6 48 WEP? linksys_SES_17709
00:11:50:FA:B6:6E 98 16 0 11 54 WEP? Joe Shlabotnik
00:13:10:A8:6D:CF 100 5 0 6 54. WEP? SMA
00:D0:9E:D6:6F:31 101 11 1 6 22 OPN 2WIRE130
00:12:17:11:76:88 101 6 0 6 48 OPN vvfw
00:15:E9:77:82:12 102 43 0 6 54. WEP? tuva
00:12:17:30:E7:6E 102 27 0 6 48 WEP? DW1
00:90:4C:7E:00:64 102 37 0 11 48 WEP? sixtwo
00:0C:41:BE:27:55 103 20 0 6 48 WEP? Linksys
00:12:88:87:BF:21 103 4 0 9 54. WEP? 2WIRE282
00:0D:72:D7:AF:61 104 8 1 6 54. WEP 2WIRE988
00:02:6F:3E:8A:88 104 17 3 3 11 WPA Haljoe6528
00:40:05:CC:40:66 108 23 3 6 11 WEP stevesa
00:14:6C:02:B2:40 109 56 0 11 48 WEP? butter
00:11:24:2A:93:4E 110 44 0 1 54 OPN WISH
BSSID STATION PWR Packets Probes
00:14:6C:4D:7E:56 00:15:E9:47:65:3B 101 3
(not associated) 00:16:6F:B0:5B:C5 111 3 WISH
(not associated) 00:0E:9B:42:74:CF 106 38 YourMomSuxDonkeyDick
(not associated) 00:11:24:A6:FB:D7 106 12 2WIRE130
Dear Lazyweb, I’m looking for a tiny computer.
It’s not uncommon to catch me unnecessarily lugging around a full laptop most of the time, and I’m kinda tired of doing so. I say unnecessarily because most of the time I really only use it for ssh’ing around anyway. Does anyone know of a modestly-sized computing device that can do some comparatively basic stuff?
I’m just looking for a reasonable trade-off between screen-readability and size.
Must haves:
Would-be-nice to have:
Any ideas?
OpenDNS Puts on Google Design-hat
So I mistyped a URL today and wound up at OpenDNS’s search page which looks … umm … a bit google-ish lately.
Frankly, I liked the last page much more.
I’m sure you’ve always wondered how flickr’s “interestingness” algorithm functioned. Well, here’s a glimpse into it through this recent patent application with the USPTO.
Abstract:
” Media objects, such as images or soundtracks, may be ranked according to a new class of metrics known as “interestingness.” These rankings may be based at least in part on the quantity of user-entered metadata concerning the media object, the number of users who have assigned metadata to the media object, access patterns related to the media object, and/or a lapse of time related to the media object.”
So the webcam idea worked, but all of the photos pretty much sucked. >95% of them were completely blurry…
I think about 50 people recognized that I was a LEGO minifig, and about 150 thought I was a wheel of cheese.
I really think I could do a much better job next time by making the foam discs a little more round. I had envisioned a glossy and perfect lego head and wound up with something that looked more like a sarcastic-lumpy-wheel of cheese or a smirking-drunk-yellow marshmallow.
Perhaps next year I’ll put in an old point-and-shoot digital camera with a remote trigger and have a usb cable running down to my pack that’ll read off the card.
One thing that would have been nice is some kind of heads-up-display inside the helmet. Just a simple backlit LCD would have been perfect. It would display the timer length remaining until the next snapshot, and some other arbitrary piece of random crap just ’cause it’d be cool.
A shutter trigger button on the side of the headpiece would be pretty useful as well.