2006 March 04 archive at Daniel Spisak on Technology

Archive for March 4th, 2006

2 years, 6 months ago

Attack of the URL

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Categories: Technology Musings

Here are some other gems I’ve come across in the last week that are worth your time to read:

Warren Buffett on America’s Growing Trade Defict
http://www.usafairtrade.com/icplan.htm

Writer at the BBC explains they are scared shitless of Bittorrent and the like
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4758636.stm

Forbes on the Most Dangerous Bacterias
http://www.forbes.com/home/sciencesandmedicine/2006/03/01/
antibiotics-pfizer-cubist-cx_mh_0301badbugs.html
How Congress and Bush is fleecing even more of your tax money without you even knowing and all in the name of less dependance on oil?
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/02/27/synfuel.tm/index.html

New budget for NASA is going to kill research work
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/02/science/space/02nasa.html?pagewanted
=2&ei=5088&en=ed05c5fddfb2d27c&ex=1298955600&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
And that finally clears out linkage for this week!

2 years, 6 months ago

Cool news and other interesting links

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So it looks like Jupiter has formed a new red spot, which I like to call Little Big Red personally:

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2006/02mar_redjr.htm

NASA Red Spot Jr.

The new Intel Mac Mini with the Core Duo processors in them look to be powerful enough to playback full res 1080p H.264 encoded video without dropping any frames. Not bad for a system with so-so integrated onboard graphics!

Apple Intel Mac Mini

http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/reader_report_1080p
_24fps_playback_on_mac_mini_core_duo_plays_fine/

Have you ever lost data due to a hard drive dying on you, or “accidentally” deleting a drives partition or other such fun means? Then you will want to check out the list of free data recovery tools assembled here:

http://riccardo.raneri.it/blog/eng/index.php/2006/03/02/free-tools-to-recover-lost-data/

Need to hammer a MySQL server to test it, or make sure that your disk subsystem isn’t lying to you about when it commits writes to disk? Need detailed Cacti reporting data on your MySQL server farm? Then check out the assorted scripts, tools, and Cacti templates here:

http://www.faemalia.net/mysqlUtils/

Need to increase the value of your FedEx Kinko’s ExpressPay smartcard? Well now you can! There is a known vulnerability to the enTrac cards because the “security bit” used to control access to change the stored value on the cards, along with the value stored itself are not encrypted. This makes it trivial to change the amount stored on the cards as can be seen here:

http://www.mal-aware.org/2006/02/28/fedex-kinkos-smart-cards-hacked/

You can also see this in action in this video here:

FedEx ExpressPay Vulnerability 16.5MB WMV9

Last but not least, ever wanted to know how some photographers manage to make photos of thier models look so damn good? Sure, airbrushing comes to some peoples minds but this page below shows how its done in Photoshop. Pretty interesting and impressive if you ask me, check out the difference!

Original After

http://www.bvibe.net/beauty.html

Thats all she wrote for this time!

2 years, 6 months ago

MPAA and RIAA are fools Part MCXMVIII

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So we have two excellent examples today of foolishness on the RIAA and MPAA’s parts. First up is the MPAA and their attempts at closing the “Analog Hole” and the reaction of consumer electronics companies and even other content makers. The “analog hole” exists because many TVs, even hi-def sets, aren’t digital, so next-generation Blu-Ray and HD-DVD players need to be able to send out an analog signal. But it’s fairly easy to record that signal at quality as good as the hi-def original and better quality than today’s DVDs.
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117938855?categoryid=1009&cs=1

The MPAA seems to think that customer education on this will be undertaken be the likes of those in the retail sector. Obviously these guys have never asked for help in a large retail store before. However what is interesting is that the other content providers had reservations about the complexity of the measures needed to plug the “Analog Hole”. So there is some hope perhaps.
Now on the other side of the stupid shoe we have the RIAA trying to claim that Sirius satillite rado is an “interactive” service solely because Sirius has a radio consumers can buy that can record MP3’s from the Sirius broadcast.

http://news.morningstar.com/news/DJ/M03/
D01/200603011718DOWJONESDJONLINE001152.html?pgid=qtqnNews2

Of course the other problem for Sirius and XM is the fact that they have to negotiate their royalty rates. So how much of Sirus’ revenue does the RIAA want because they are “interactive” now supposedly? Try 30%. That’s right, not 3%, not 10%, no that would be ONE THIRD. All because a radio can record to MP3. God forbid a consumer time-shift their favorite radio shows.