Category: Geek

If you’re a Firefox user, you migth want to check out the Firefox Tweak Guide at TweakFactor. Get your tweak on…

Warning: Shameless Self Promotion Ahead:

The news is official today, so I thought I’d share it here. Frighteningly-creative composer/musician John Bergin and I have created a soundtrack to Traitor General, the forthcoming Gaunt’s Ghosts novel by Dan Abnett. The Gaunt series takes place in the world of the popular tabletop sci-fi wargame Warhammer 40,000. Along with the regular paperback version of the book, there’ll be a leatherbound special edition with our 73-minute soundtrack included. I’m psyched. I think the CD came out really well.

Check out the Black Library’s News Page for more info and a sample of one of the tracks: “There Are No Miracles (Only Men).”

For the more digitally-inclined gamer, THQ is working on a real-time 40K strategy game, called Dawn of War, using the Relic 3D engine. So far, it looks pretty great and looks like it captures the tabletop experience better than previous stinkers like Chaos Gate and Final Liberation.

According to the New York Times the system of Morse Code is about to get an update with the introduction of the dit-dah-dah-dit-dah-dit signal representing “@”. This will enable the four people in the United States who actually know Morse code to communicate email addresses to one another so they can share files and communicate on the Internet.

I kid because I love. Actually I was a huge Morse code fan when I was 6, and used my walkie-talkie to communicate dits and dahs to other friends in a very similar use of more sophisticated technology being used for more rudimentary purposes. Morse code is still useful in the case of national emergency, power outages and the like, since it can be broadcast over a variety of mediums. Everyone should learn it, if only for the purpose of being able to communicate in a binary language (instead of that much-easier-to-learn hex).

Nifty Mini iPod car installation.

Via Slashdot

Prices on the Playstation 2 have dropped from $300 to just $180, and the hobby linux kit for it has also dropped in price — now just $100. For that price you get a 40 Gb hard-drive, a linux distribution designed for the PS2, a network adapter (broadband only), USB keyboard and mouse and a cable that allows you to hook the PS2 to a standard monitor.

Considering the multi-functionality of the Playstation, $280 for a brand-spankin’-new, pretty capable linux box that also plays games is relatively good deal. Of course what you can do with that is limited by the non-standard architecture of the PS2, but there’s a pretty active community of PS2-linuxers that have extended the capabilities quite a bit.

Note that the 40 Gb drive indluded with the Linux kit cannot be used for games, and may prevent you from playing the latest Final Fantasy XI released this week ($100) that includes its own 40 Gb drive.

If you’re above the age of 28, one of your first computer gaming experiences was probably a text adventure like Zork or the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (anyone else spend like 3 hours trying to get that damn babelfish to work?).

Now those games, which have been available for sometime for free, can be accessed via AIM from your PC or any handheld/phone with AIM, thanks to an enterprising group dedicated to preserving gaming history. Check out the Wired article for details.

If you’re into high-quality collectible vinyl … well, let’s call them what they really are…dolls, then you’re going to love (as I do) this cool looking one from Jason Siu. Not only is it a funky looking vinyl, it actually works as a speaker as well, pumping out a claimed 25 watts. While I wouldn’t hook it up to my high-end sound system (if I had one, that is) it certainly looks like it’d be a cool addition to a computer at work. Limited edition of 200, available on ebay for around $100, and maybe elsewhere for less.

I assume I’m not the only geek who’s noticed the…er…beautiful mind of Jennifer Collison, member of JPL’s Mars Rover team. I think I’m in love! I just can’t get enough of her saying: “Mössbauer integration.”

See her daily Opportunity updates on the Rover mission page.

Well, unfortunately, if you’re still using Windows, Ctrl-Alt-Delete’s retirement has been deferred because Microsoft gutted its retirement package, but the keyboard combo’s creator, David Bradley, DID retire last week. Our pal Paul McFedries, keeper of the awesome WordSpy site and daily word e-list, paid tribute by making Ctrl-Alt-Delete the term of the day. In the notes to the term, he writes:

Today’s term was inspired by the recent retirement announcement of David Bradley, who, way back in 1980, programmed the original IBM PC to restart (perform a “warm boot,” as the geeks say) when the user pressed the Ctrl-Alt-Delete key combination. Also known as the “three-fingered salute” and the “Vulcan nerve pinch,” this classic key combo has bailed out untold millions of users when their otherwise unresponsive paperweights, oops, I mean *computers* had frozen solid due to a slight shift in the barometric pressure. It’s a tribute to the resistentialist nature of the computing beast that Ctrl-Alt-Delete remains a part of the Windows operating system to this day.

There was a brief spike recently in the trend of Bluejacking, which really wasn’t “jacking” at all so much as spoofing people by sending harmless messages to Bluetooth enabled phones. But Bluejacking has given way to Bluesnarfing (?) — an actual hack of a Bluetooth enabled phone that can copy or edit a person’s address or organizer files in the phone. This hack could affect users of many phones, such as the Sony Ericsson ones in which Bluetooth is more popular, but only when the phone is in “discovery” mode, which is user-initiated. Nokia phones with Bluetooth may be more subject to hack though, since for some reason the security hole in those phones can be exploited even when the BT is in passive mode.

The folks who discovered this weakness in the BT authentication protocols have posted information, including a chart that deatails the vulnerability of particular phones.
via C|Net.