Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Another fact to make you dislike DRM

(via The Consumerist)

DRM is bad for consumers.  Don’t believe the companies cramming this garbage down our throats.  DRM restricts your rights, and prevents you from doing things you are legally allowed to do, like rip your CDs to MP3 format to put on your ipod/Zen/whatever player.

Now, unsurprisingly, we find through testing that DRM reduces your portable music device’s battery life as well.

Those who belong to subscription services such as Napster or Rhapsody have it worse. Music rented from these services arrive in the WMA DRM 10 format, and it takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself. Heavy DRM not only slows down an MP3 player but also sucks the very life out of them. Take, for instance, the critically acclaimed Creative Zen Vision:M, with a rated battery life of up to 14 hours for audio and 4 hours for video. CNET tested it at nearly 16 hours, with MP3s–impressive indeed. Upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks, the Vision:M scored at just more than 12 hours. That’s a loss of almost 4 hours, and you haven’t even turned the backlight on yet.

We found similar discrepancies with other PlaysForSure players. The Archos Gmini 402 Camcorder maxed out at 11 hours, but with DRM tracks, it played for less than 9 hours. The iRiver U10, with an astounding life of about 32 hours, came in at about 27 hours playing subscription tracks. Even the iPod, playing back only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3s by about 8 percent. What I’m saying is that while battery life may not be a critical issue today, as it was when one of the original hard drive players–the Creative Nomad Jukebox–lasted a pathetic 4 hours running on four AA nickel-metal-hydride rechargeables (and much worse on alkalines), the industry needs to include battery specs for DRM audio tracks or the tracks we’re buying or subscribing. Yet, here’s another reason why we should still be ripping our music in MP3: better battery life, the most obvious reason being universal device compatibility.

The article continues by pointing out that Sony, of all companies, actually points out the conditions under which their player gets the advertised battery life and how playing under non-ideal conditions can impact that.

[tags]DRM, mp3, battery life[/tags]

Strange units of measurement

Sometimes, I wonder who even figures out stuff like this.  And why.

Belgium

Conservationists discussing the destruction of the Amazon Rainforest often use “Belgium” as an approximate measure of how much forest is being lost annually. The area of the country of Belgium is 30,528 km².

Happy

The unit of happiness, coined by Dave Gorman in his television series Important Astrology Experiment. One Happy is equal to how much happier you feel if someone gives you a pound coin, which is equivalent to how less happy they feel upon relinquishing it.

Helen

The amount of beauty that can launch one thousand ships. Usually used as the millihelen, the amount of beauty that can launch one ship.

Named after the fictional Helen of Troy, from the Iliad. Inspired by Marlowe‘s line from the play The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, “Was this the face that launched a thousand ships…?”.

Negative values have also been observed—these, of course, are measured by the number of ships sunk or the number of clocks stopped.

Microhelens are, as one-tenth of the beauty required to motivate one sailor, sometimes given as the units for the common rating-out-of-ten scale of beauty.

There are plenty more, including coffee, jiffy, donkey-power (and hobo-power), and some that are just unfathomable.

[tags]Measurement[/tags]

Make your wife happy

We all know this isn’t really possible, but according to LiveScience.com, you can actually make your wife happy. How? Well:

The key ingredient to a woman’s marital bliss is her husband’s emotional commitment, suggests a new study based on a survey of 5,000 couples across the country.

The finding is in contrast to previous research that focused on a husband’s salary and division of household work as the main drivers of a woman’s perception of a happy marriage.

That means making lots of money won’t make her happy, but making sure her emotional needs are will. Hmmmm. Color me skeptical.

[tags]Marriage, bliss, happiness[/tags]

Watch ‘Perfect Disasters’ on Discovery channel

(via LiveScience)

I don’t know why natural disasters are so fascinating.  I guess it’s probably the immense power behind things such as tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, and more.  Whatever it is, I think it will make for some good TV.  Be sure to watch the new ‘Perfect Disasters’ series on the Discovery Channel, starting this Sunday evening.

The series examines what might happen if some of Nature’s most destructive storms were unleashed on some of the world’s most populous cities.

Each catastrophe is presented as a mini-movie, complete with actors and fictional storylines, but unlike similar Hollywood creations, each episode is peppered with expert scientific commentary and slick computer animations explaining the science behind the storms.

The series’ tagline is “It may not happen tomorrow, but it is scientific prediction.”

Each episode takes a natural disaster and imagines what might happen if it were ratcheted up a notch to become the “perfect storm” of its type. Tornadoes become mega-tornadoes that reduce entire cities to rubble and solar storms are so powerful they can generate global blackouts that last for years.

[tags]Perfect Disaster, Discovery Channel, science predictions[/tags]

Swimming snake robot

I’ve been on a big robot kick lately. I even subscribe to Robot Magazine and read the articles – yes, I do more than just look at the pictures. So when I see things like this swimming robot snake (with video), I am curious. As before, I still want my robotic swimming minions with frickin’ lasers on their heads. Always allow for lasers, folks. Always.

Powered by a lithium-ion battery, the ACM-R5 is a radio-controlled amphibious robot designed to move like its real world counterpart. It can slither or swim underwater for 30 minutes on a full charge. Inside, you’ll find an intricate sensor system (attitude/torque), small-sized camera, and a 32bit micro controller.

[tags]Robot snake, swimming robot[/tags]

Booting XP on a Mac – game over

(via Hack-a-day)

It appears that XP on a Mac has been confirmed, and “narf2006” and “blanka” have won the prize money.  A link to the download is available on that site.  I especially like the Hack-a-day response to this, though:

With this new development the only reason not to run XP on a Mac is that XP sucks

And I agree with that even though I run XP.  It’s just the best way available for me to game, still.  I need to go back to Linux, but gaming is easier on XP, and with 2 kids and a sucky job, getting into my games most easily is a high priority.

[tags]XP on Mac[/tags]

Decode the numbers on the fruit you buy

(via BoingBoing)

Sure, this is useless knowledge to most, but it’s still interesting.  Some day, you might just win money for knowing trivial stuff like this.

The sticker labels on fruit: The numbers tell you how the fruit was grown. Conventionally grown fruit has four digits; organically grown fruit has five and starts with a nine; genetically engineered has five numbers and starts with an eight.

[tags]Fruit[/tags]

8th graders build their own roller-coaster

(via BoingBoing)

This is just really cool. I want to build my own roller-coaster. I’m sure my kids would like that too. And my wife would just roll her eyes if I suggested doing it. The truth is, I lack the space to build a roller-coaster, and I doubt the neighborhood association would approve it anyway. But some day, maybe I’ll find the time, money, knowledge, and whatever else to do it. In the meantime, I just have to be envious of the work these students have completed.

Painted mostly black and decorated with a solar system theme – the planets, the sun, Earth’s moon, Orion’s Nebula, the asteroid belt and a black hole – the roller coaster includes three lifts and drops, an enormous figure eight and a 360-degree loop. The track is 400 feet long, and students estimate that the car will reach a top speed of 35 mph coming down the final and tallest drop.

“It goes so fast you would swear it would fall off,” said Chris Rubio, a history teacher.

And because articles on the linked site are not guaranteed to be available long term, the complete article is pasted below the break:

[tags]Roller coaster, DIY[/tags]

Continue reading “8th graders build their own roller-coaster”

How to make your own boarding pass

(via Schneier on Security)

Make your own boarding pass, and fly when you want.  It even works if you are on the no-fly list. The author doubts this can be used to actually get on a flight, but Bruce Schneier has written about this before, and it seems at the very least, you can trade tickets with someone.  So you can probably work your way on to a flight without even being actually booked for the flight.  Just something to think about next time you have any delusions about the effectiveness of so-called airport security systems.

[tags]Fake boarding pass, airport security[/tags]

Another university puts course offerings online

(via BoingBoing)

Following the lead by MIT (I’m probably wrong on that – someone other than MIT was probably first – it’s just the first biggie I know about), The Open University is making all course material available online.  This means more resources for study for those interested in learning without the means to attend further schooling.

Britain’s Open University has just announced an ambitious program spend £5.65 million putting its courseware on the Internet under a Creative Commons license — it joins MIT and many other institutions in adding its material to the common pool of university curriculum that can be freely used, edited, shared, and repurposed.

[tags]Open University, Creative Commons courseware[/tags]

Thoughtful write-up concerning airport security failure

Here’s a good article by Bruce Schneier concerning how bad airport security is.  In particular, good security systems fail gracefully.  Airport security fails catastrophically.  What does this mean?  Well, when airport security fails, entire terminals have to be evacuated and re-screened.  I’m not saying I have a better solution, but it’s clear that this isn’t a good failure method.

Security systems can fail in two ways. They can fail to defend against an attack. And they can fail when there is no attack to defend. The latter failure is often more important, because false alarms are more common than real attacks.

Aside from the obvious security failure — how did this person manage to disappear into the crowd, anyway — it’s painfully obvious that the overall security system did not fail well. Well-designed security systems fail gracefully, without affecting the entire airport terminal. That the only thing the TSA could do after the failure was evacuate the entire terminal and rescreen everyone is a testament to how badly designed the security system is.

[tags]Schneier, security, airport security[/tags]