Robert W. Rose

How? Be a mid-level employee at a big company and then make statements at a public conference that become taken out of context to make dramatic headlines like, “War on Terror overblown according to Microsoft“. The article even has a picture of the twin towers on fire next to the word “Microsoft”. Wow, you can’t buy that kind of great publicity!

But it gets better: He also touches on kidnapping. Another great thing that I’m sure Microsoft wants to be associated with! Next time you think of 9/11 or child kidnappings, think Microsoft. I know I will now, al beit with a chuckle.

Microsoft has apparently gone so far as to censor the portion of the conference video where their employee made the remarks that resulted in this headline. My respect for Microsoft will go way up if they don’t further reprimand this guy, but in this State of Fear we live in I can’t imagine them letting it slide. I totally agree with his point of view 100% but you can’t make statements like that while you’re representing a major corporation.

BoingBoing recently posted a blurb about “Zeitgeist: The Movie”, a budget film* (I wouldn’t exactly call it a documentary) that “purports to tell the real truth about Christianity, 9/11, and the International Bankers.” I had to see what this was about!

I couldn’t even get a minute into the movie before I felt like I had to jump out on to the internets to verify some of the material they were throwing out: “Horus [the Egyptian Sun God] had 12 disciples, was resurrected, … was born on December 25th … and that is why Christmas is celebrated on December 25th.” This contradicted what I had thought previously; that Christmas was celebrated on December 25th because the Romans had made it that day to attract followers. Searching the internets for q=horus christmas returns little useful results. Searches for q=horus disciples actually turns up a lot of hits disputing that claim. Wikipedia’s page on Horus makes no reference to Horus having 12 disciples or any kind of birthday.

Next up was this bit about “ages,” or “eras”, a period of 2150 years corresponding the movement of the Earth to the signs of the Zodiac. The movie says that the Moses ushered in the age of Ares, Jesus ushered in the age of Pisces, and the next age will be the age of Aquarius. Whistling a certain tune I headed out to Google again. q=jesus zodiac pisces returns 220,000 hits, but I wouldn’t exactly call the top hits reputable; it’s mostly people hawking astrological bible books. Some of the quotes on these pages look like a classified ad from the Weekly World News: “The Great Pyramid’s ‘missing capstone’ has puzzled Egyptologists for centuries…” (But for $24.99 + shipping we’ll explain everything!) q=moses zodiac returns similar pages. q=era 2150 returns a hit to the science fiction book “2150 AD”.

OK. So the movie is a little flakey on the facts and references. In fact, here’s a Google search about the movie that does return some reasonable hits: q=zeitgeigst movie bullshit — 437,000 results!

As pure entertainment, Zeitgeist hits the mark. (A better title would have been “Illuminati: The Movie“)… But seriously, if you’re into this sort of stuff, I would recommend viewing Bill Moyer’s Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth, which is based on scholarly inquiry, not conspiracy theories. It’s a little dry on the special effects, but at least you won’t feel like you’re being fleeced while you’re watching it!

Update: Too funny. I just noticed the “statement” page for Zeitgeist says, “some information contained [in the movie] is not obtained by simple keyword searches on the Internet…” …why? Is The Man keeping this information from us? It gets better: “It is my hope that people will not take what is said in the film as the truth.” LOL. I’ve been pwned.

This website has a description for how to get a Midisport 1×1/2×2/etc MIDI box going with Linux.

But it’s old and outdated! Don’t click that link! 🙂

This package on Sourceforge is what you want! usb-midi-fw contains up to date firmware for Midisport devices. It appears to be semi-endorsed by M-Audio, as their names are referenced in some of the copyrights. Yay.

Last year Oregon passed an anti-methamphetamine law that makes it illegal to sell drugs containing pseudoephedrine without a prescription.

I’ve never had a new law effect me as directly and negatively as this one. I suffer from seasonal allergies (hay-fever in the Willamette Valley, pines and juniper in Central Oregon), and of the many drugs I have tried to combat allergies, nothing works as reliably and effectively as pseudoephedrine, especially ones that combine pseudoephedrine and tripolidine (the original actifed and aprodine).

When Oregon first put pseudoephedrine behind the counter and required ID to purchase it I stockpiled as much pseudoephedrine and triprolidine drugs as I could. Yesterday I started to run out, and that was the first time I learned about the new law. I was infuriated.

Today I went to the doctor’s office to get a prescription for Aprodine and Sudafed (two drugs containing pseudoephedrine) and in addition to the long wait I had to endure, I was also hit with sticker-shock at what the drugs cost. 40 tables of Sudafed that used to cost less than $2 over the counter how costs $25 by prescription with NO REFILLS. With my $20 copay for the doctor’s visit I’m getting ding’d 20x what I used to pay. My insurance has to pay over $100 for the visit.

And for what? So we can make it a little bit harder for people to manufacture meth? According to a story I recently heard on NPR, meth usage is actually UP in Oregon as a result of the new law. The drop in locally-produced meth has opened up a flood of new meth from California and Mexico that is more pure and more addictive than the home-made meth manufactured from pseudoephedrine OTC pills.

I can appreciate the state trying to restrict access to this drug, but they need to open a pathway for legitimate consumers to get access to it.

There’s been a lot of “made in China” problems lately.

First there was the pet food recall which was later discovered to be caused by contaminated wheat gluten exported from China.

Then there was the toothpaste recall where the FDA found several major brands of toothpaste that were made in China to contain diethylene glycol, a chemical used in antifreeze.

Today the Consumer Product Safety Commision is announcing a recall of 1.5 million children’s toys made in China that contain lead.

In all of these recall cases it would be hard to accept that the contaminants got into these products purely by “mistake.” The scale at which these recalls were issued was too large to have been isolated to a single batch of products–these occured across many batches over a significant period of time.

I wonder what’s going to be next.

Update 7/1/07: Made in China Flip-flops sold at Wal-Mart cause severe skin irritations.

Update 7/17/07: 100 people die in Panama after using tainted Made in China cough syrup.

Update 7/20/07: China shuts down 3 factories in response to product safety problems.

Update 8/14/07: Mattel Toys recalls millions of toys that were Made in China and contained lead paint.

Update 8/18/07: Toys R Us recalls bibs that were Made in China and contained lead.

My KD-34XBR970 shipped from the factory with a fair bit of overscan… about 10% of the picture on the left and right is cut off, and about 5% on the top and bottom. Sony customer care said they would be more than happy to fix it, but that requires moving a 200lb TV to a local TV repair shop…

You can address the overscan yourself by putting the TV into service mode and adjusting the display parameters. Obviously you can really screw up your TV good doing this, so beware..

To enter service mode turn the TV off then press DISPLAY, 5, VOLUME+, POWER. The current parameter group appears in the top-left and the current parameter appears below it. You can change parameters with 1 and 4, parameter groups with 2 and 5, and the parameter setting with 3 and 6. To save a parameter setting hit MUTING, then ENTER. You have to save each parameter setting individually. I would recommend you write down the default for your TV before you change anything! Here are some parameters I found useful for adjusting overscan:

MID1/DHPH – horizontal position
MID1/DVPH – vertical position
MID1/MDHS – horizontal scale
MID1/MDVS – vertical scale

I’m only posting this here because searching for “__UnsupportedConditionalExpressionDestruction” on the internets returns no useful hits…

There appears to be a bug in the December 2006 spuxlc (the compiler that comes with Cell SDK 2.0) where it fails to link certain segments of code that have been compiled with optimizations on (-O2, -O3, etc). I’ve got a fair amount of code that I’ve copied into SPULand that wouldn’t link and it was a little frustrating not finding any hits on Google..

RT.o:(.data+0x7dc): undefined reference to `__UnsupportedConditionalExpressionDestruction(void*, long)’

Here’s the problem line of code:

if(i != ignoreobject && _objects[i]->Hit(ro, rd, hitdata))
{
…

The fix?

if(i != ignoreobject)
if(_objects[i]->Hit(ro, rd, hitdata))
{
…

Lovely. I wonder if there’s some magic-fu where it tries to optimize SPU branches that’s tripping it up.

Hey hey.. I just figured out how to use my Packet8 service from my computer.. I wish I had done this a long time ago, there have been many occassions where it would have been nice to use my Packet8 service from my laptop.

The key to getting it working is discovering your Packet8 username and password. The DTA310 will never reveal to you the password, however it can be made to reveal the username. If you install the packet8 “unlocked” firmware and then go to the SIP settings page it will show you your 10-digit username. [While you’re in the unlocked firmware go ahead and disable the G729 codec]..

How do you get the password? The password turns out to be the original 10-digit activation code you received from Packet8 when you first ordered service.

Now you can configure your favorite VOIP software (I’ve been using X-Lite) for SIP authentication with Packet8. Set the domain to “packet8.net” and for the SIP Proxy (as of this writing) use 63.209.12.27:15062 or 63.209.12.28:15062. If the address ever changes the unlocked firmware will show you the current server it’s using, so just check with your DTA310 first.

Even though it appears to be the “official” linux for Playstation 3, Yellow Dog Linux on PS3 was a bit of a dissapointment.. everything is way out of date, and it turns out IBM is only supporting Fedora Core 6 at the moment for the Cell SDK. So if you want to be on the bleeding edge you’ve got to have Fedora Core installed.

But why settle for Fedora Core 6 when Fedora Core 7 for PS3 is right around the corner? dwmw2 on #cell (irc.oftc.net) convinced me to try out the development branch of FC7. Here’s how you get it installed:

Update your PS3 (at least 1.60 or 1.70)

Download the latest otheros.bld that’s built on petitboot and put it on a memory card in /ps3/otheros. Go to System Settings -> Install Other OS and install it.

Download the latest Fedora Core boot.iso and burn it to a DVD.

Reboot your PS3 in Other OS and select Linux64.

HD users: If you want to do the install in 1080i or 720p, wiggle the mouse on the Linux64/Linux32 selection screen and leave the mouse on Linux32. This will stop it from booting in 480i automatically. Then hit Ctrl-Alt-F1 to get to a TTY. From here, cd to /var/tmp/mnt-scd0*/ppc/ppc64 and run: ‘/sbin/kexec -f –initrd=ramdisk.image.gz –command-line=”video=1080i” vmlinuz’ (or video=720p) At the moment you can’t just select “720p” or “1080i” from the graphical boot menu, as it does not pass video information on to the installer. 🙁

When prompted for where to pull the install material from you can select HTTP, or you could just download it yourself and put it on a DVD which is much faster. Either way, the install material is here. If that’s too slow you can try one of the mirrors, but beware — the mirrors can be 1-2 days behind, which could cause you grief when you’re pulling the latest from the development branch.

Observations after a day with FC7…

* I wouldn’t recommend installing FC7 over HTTP! It took me 8 hours. The PS3 doesn’t have enough RAM to manage the install very well.

* No sound in FC7

* No wireless in FC7

There’s been a lot of talk in recent days about where the PS3 is, where the PS3 needs to be, and where the PS3 is going. What no one seems to be mentioning anywhere is that the PS2 has been outselling the Xbox 360.. Go thunk on that one for a while.

What’s hindering “nextgen” adoption rates? Price? Content? I don’t care to speculate on what’s holding up the masses, but I know what’s stopping me personally.

All I want from my next console is an upgrade of Xbox Media Center. I’m not talking about the “media center” remote desktop client that’s in the 360, I’m talking about that absolutely-killer plays-anything super-extendable totally-amazing questionably-legal media center application for the original Xbox that I’ve used for more hours than any other game on that system (or any other system I’ve owned) combined. XBMC recently went mainstream when Popular Science posted an article on how to mod your Xbox to run it. The program is so popular it’s making it very difficult to get MS original HD component cables for the Xbox this late in the product’s lifecycle (a recent search on Froogle turned up only knock-offs).

The problem with XBMC is 1) I use it so much I swear it’s killing the lifespan of my Xbox and 2) the Xbox doesn’t have the juice to decode video over ~576 scanlines. Now that I have a 1080 display this is becoming more and more important to me. I want something that has the power to decode at least 720p video. Is it too much to ask that my next console be a replacement for XBMC? I don’t think so!

So, dear console makers, please make me an XBMC-like killer app that can play 720p video in any form (AVC/H.264/MPEG4, DivX, Xvid, etc) and in any container format (AVI, MKV, etc) and I will adopt your console! If you go mainstream with it I’m sure it will effect nextgen adoption rates.