March 21, 2006
Halo 2 = Training for CROWS
We all knew that
raising a generation of American kids on violent video games would pay off at some point for the military industrial
complex:
The U.S. Army has discovered a remote control gun turret that works, and cannot get enough of
them. The army wants over 9,000 CROWS (common remotely operated weapon stations), but is only getting 15 a month. There
should be about a thousand CROWS in service by the end of the year.
...But there's another reason, not often
talked about, for the success of CROWS. The guys operating these systems grew up playing video games. They developed
skills in operating systems (video games) very similar to the CROWS controls. This was important, because viewing the
world around the vehicle via a vidcam is not as enlightening (although a lot safer) than having your head and chest
exposed to the elements, and any firepower the enemy sends your way. But experienced video gamers are skilled at
whipping that screen view around, and picking up any signs of danger. Iraqis are amazed at how observant CROWS is.
Iraqis tend to just wrote this off as another example of American 'magic.' But the troops know better. Video
games can save your life.
God bless our Master Chief-loving troops and their mad fragging skills. It
turns out splattering Iraqi insurgents from the comfort of your Humvee is that much easier thanks to countless hours
spent blasting Covenant Elites. Maybe this means some defense contractor will sponsor a free weekend of Xbox Live.
(Via Xbox 360 Fanboy.)
Posted by Phil at 07:33 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
December 19, 2005
Scoble Made Me Wait in Line for an XBox 360
Well, kind of. A little over a year ago, I wrote an entry talking about how Scoble influenced me to buy the original XBox.
I have been a Halo 2 addict since then, even frequently going to Halo 2 LAN parties on Friday nights where ten or so hard-core gamers get to use me as cannon fodder. It's always fun though, even if I can never finish higher than the middle of the pack (which is a good night).
Aside from that, my interest in the XBox 360 was kind of weak until I played a demo of Call of Duty 2. Then I was sold. I actually waited in line at Walmart for 15 hours to get a system the day they game out. Here's a picture of my chair that day:
Now before you accuse me of being crazy, realize that I am a freelance developer and I was able to take my PowerBook to Walmart with me and get some work done. It was still a long day though. The best experience I can compare it to is a flight across the ocean - sitting in the same place for that many hours is draining. At least I was inside and warm. Some of my friends had to camp outside at Best Buy.
So at the end of the night, I had a Premium system, 4 wireless controllers, and 2 games. It's an amazing system. I can't stop playing (and neither can my wife). Scoble, the XBox 360 is going to destroy the Playstation 3. And not just because of the games, but because of the XBox Live! service. The Live! service and its community make the 360 the best console gaming platform there is. Period. I would not even consider a system like the PS3 that does not have a service like Live!
And the Live! Arcade is perfect. My wife is hooked on Hexic, and I have played Geometry Wars more than Call of Duty 2 and Perfect Dark Zero combined. By the time it is said and done, and the XBox 720 comes out, I will probably have spent hundreds of dollars on the Live! Arcade. I guess that's what Microsoft wants. And I have no problem paying for great games.
Scoble, I think the 360 is the best thing Microsoft has going for it right now. But Microsoft is stagnant when it comes to web development technology.
I have spent the last few years working with C#, ASP.NET, SQL Server, SharePoint, and BizTalk. I even spent two weeks at the Microsoft Technology Center in Boston. I have invested heavily in learning Microsoft's web development technology over the last few years.
And I'm walking away from it.
Scoble, as a web developer who is now doing freelance work for a living, my framework of choice is Ruby on Rails. Mostly for the reasons listed here. And also because Microsoft's web development technologies have lost their appeal. I can remember being blown away by ASP.NET when I first saw it. I now feel even more strongly about Rails. And when I talk to businesses and friends who are developers, I make sure they know about Rails.
Sure, I know about the new Visual Studio, ASP.NET 2.0, the new SharePoint, and the new SQL Server. And I just don't care. Microsoft needs to capture some of the 360 magic and use it on their web development technology or they will continue to lose developers like me.
Posted by Phil at 09:54 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
November 04, 2005
iMix via RSS - Finally
After all of the recent exciting news regarding iTunes and the iPod, the lowly iMix seems to get little or no attention. First introduced a few years ago, the iMix has since been sitting comfortably in the left hand column of the iTunes Music Store front page.
I think iMixes are pretty cool. If you are not aware of what they are, and iMix is a user-submitted "mix" of songs that resides locally in their iTunes. I may have a playlist of songs I use for background music while I write code, and I could submit it as an iMix entitled "The Best Coding Music in the World." Users of the iTunes Music Store could then vote on the iMix and buy the songs listed in the iMix.
As of this writing, there are currently 332,560 iMixes, and over 1.3 million votes cast on those iMixes.
How does RSS fit into this? Well, Apple was an early adopter of RSS, and they have a page on their site dedicated to RSS, which is far more than most companies today. But since introducing RSS support a few years ago, Apple has done little to expand their offerings of content available via RSS.
A little over a year ago, while writing for Lockergnome, I wrote a piece asking Apple to make more iTunes content available via RSS.
As you can guess, not much happened. So what does any self-respecting hacker with free time do? Working with another developer, we hacked together a Perl script that gets the iMix information from the iTunes Music Store and reformats it as RSS.
I've had this code sitting around for a while now, and finally decided to make it public. So without further ado, here are the links:
Most Recent iMixes - 
Featured iMixes -
Top Rated iMixes -
*Disclosure* - these feeds include my iTunes affiliate information in them, so if you use them to buy a song, I will get a cut of the sale - very similar to the Amazon affiliate program. Hey - I'm unemployed and doing freelance work. I can use all the cash I can get.
These feeds are updated every 15 minutes, and are actually only a subset of the iMix data. I found that the three main iMix lists are too big for RSS. For example, the Most Recent lists the 100 most recently submitted iMixes. If all this information is parsed into RSS, the resulting RSS file is at least 1.5 MB! Way too big for RSS. And way too costly for my bandwidth. And, in what was the deciding factor to limit the number of new items, FeedBurner does not allow a feed to be more than 250 KB.
So each feed updates every 15 minutes with the 9 most recent iMixes as RSS items. The Most Recent feed updates the most often, followed by the Top Rated feed, and the Featured feed updates far less frequently. I think Apple must manually update that one.
If there is enough interest, I will post the code and make it freely available. Just let me know. And I will probably put up links that do not include the affiliate information. Or you can just use my code to make your own. Just give me some time to clean the scripts up a little.
Posted by Phil at 10:23 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
October 28, 2005
First Segway Ride
While in Estes Park last weekend, our group found a Segway dealership and rented four machines for an hour. We rode all over the city after a brief training session.
I have to say the Segway is one of the coolest pieces of technology ever made.
Posted by Phil at 11:51 AM | Comments (0)
May 24, 2005
Cantenna
Some friends moved into our neighborhood a few weeks ago. They live three houses down the street from us. I thought it would be a cool project to extend our wireless network to their house, and after talking it over, we decided to try it.
I knew extending our wireless network to a house 100 feet away was possible, but I was not sure what equipment we would need. I did some research and found the Cantenna. From reviews I found, I knew it should easily be able to focus the wireless signal and transmit it to the house. I also knew I wanted to use a Linksys WRT54G with custom Sveasoft firmware. Sveasoft firmware allows you to boost the signal strength on the router, something you cannot do with the factory firmware. Would it work? Would we need more equipment, like a router on the other end? Only one way to find out.
Once I had everything setup on the router, we did a test from our second story porch. It worked perfectly. I plan on moving the router and cantenna inside our garage, which has a window with clear line of sight to the house. For now though, here is a shot of the setup on our porch.
Posted by Phil at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
Cantenna
Some friends moved into our neighborhood a few weeks ago. They live three houses down the street from us. I thought it would be a cool project to extend our wireless network to their house, and after talking it over, we decided to try it.
I knew extending our wireless network to a house 100 feet away was possible, but I was not sure what equipment we would need. I did some research and found the Cantenna. From reviews I found, I knew it should easily be able to focus the wireless signal and transmit it to the house. I also knew I wanted to use a Linksys WRT54G with custom Sveasoft firmware. Sveasoft firmware allows you to boost the signal strength on the router, something you cannot do with the factory firmware. Would it work? Would we need more equipment, like a router on the other end? Only one way to find out.
Once I had everything setup on the router, we did a test from our second story porch. It worked perfectly. I plan on moving the router and cantenna inside our garage, which has a window with clear line of sight to the house. For now though, here is a shot of the setup on our porch.
Posted by Phil at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
Monkeys treat robot arm as bonus appendage
Monkeys treat robot arm as bonus appendage: "David Pescovitz: Monkeys that controlled robot arms via neural implants were actually thinking of the arm as their own extra appendage. Duke University neurobiologists Miguel Nicolelis, Mikhail Lebedev, and their colleagues analyzed data from Lebedev's 2003 experiments in which he trained implanted monkeys to move a cursor and robot arm by thought alone. (Previous post about that demonstration.) Only recently though did the researchers discover that the monkey wasn't moving the arm in lieu of its real arm but rather that neurons in the brain had shifted to control the robot. From Duke University Medical Center:
Link"Mikhail's analysis of the brain signals associated with use of the robotic and animals' actual arms revealed that the animal was simultaneously doing one thing with its own arm and something else with the robotic arm," (Nicolelis) said. "So, our hypothesis is that the adaptation of brain structures allows the expansion of capability to use an artificial appendage with no loss of function, because the animal can flip back and forth between using the two. Depending on the goal, the animal could use its own arm or the robotic arm, and in some cases both.
"This finding supports our theory that the brain has extraordinary abilities to adapt to incorporate artificial tools, whether directly controlled by the brain or through the appendages" said Nicolelis. "Our brain representations of the body are adaptable enough to incorporate any tools that we create to interact with the environment. This may include a robot appendage, but it may also include using a computer keyboard or a tennis racket. In any such case, the properties of this tool become incorporated into our neuronal 'space'," he said...
"From a philosophical point of view, we're saying that the sense of self is not limited to our capability for introspection, our sense of our body limits, and to the experiences we've accumulated," Nicolelis said. "It really incorporates every external device that we use to deal with the environment."
(Via Boing Boing Blog.)
Posted by Phil at 07:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Monkeys treat robot arm as bonus appendage
Monkeys treat robot arm as bonus appendage: "David Pescovitz: Monkeys that controlled robot arms via neural implants were actually thinking of the arm as their own extra appendage. Duke University neurobiologists Miguel Nicolelis, Mikhail Lebedev, and their colleagues analyzed data from Lebedev's 2003 experiments in which he trained implanted monkeys to move a cursor and robot arm by thought alone. (Previous post about that demonstration.) Only recently though did the researchers discover that the monkey wasn't moving the arm in lieu of its real arm but rather that neurons in the brain had shifted to control the robot. From Duke University Medical Center:
Link
"This finding supports our theory that the brain has extraordinary abilities to adapt to incorporate artificial tools, whether directly controlled by the brain or through the appendages" said Nicolelis. "Our brain representations of the body are adaptable enough to incorporate any tools that we create to interact with the environment. This may include a robot appendage, but it may also include using a computer keyboard or a tennis racket. In any such case, the properties of this tool become incorporated into our neuronal 'space'," he said...
"From a philosophical point of view, we're saying that the sense of self is not limited to our capability for introspection, our sense of our body limits, and to the experiences we've accumulated," Nicolelis said. "It really incorporates every external device that we use to deal with the environment."
(Via Boing Boing Blog.)
Posted by Phil at 07:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 04, 2005
Iowa Unwires Rest Stops
I laughed when I read the first line of this article...
Iowa Unwires Rest Stops: "Iowa joins a growing trend of states with large empty stretches: For traffic safety purposes, the more frequently people stop, stretch, and take their eyes off the road, the better. Adding Wi-Fi at rest stops is just one tool in that arsenal, but it's also a nice idea for tourists, truckers, and business travelers. Iowa will equip a total of 40 locations by July; 20 of them by mid-March. A trial set of eight locations had 111,000 access over seven months. Several stops are active on Interstates 35 and 80. Service will be free and operated by I-Spot...."
(Via Wi-Fi Networking News.)
Posted by Phil at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)
September 23, 2004
Ready for Halo 2
Are you ready for Halo 2? Scoble says "I am. I sure wish I could talk about Halo 2 (they've asked us to wait). Let's just put it this way. Some things live up to the pre-release hype. Some things don't. Halo 2 does. We'll talk more November 9."
As for me, I am seriously considering taking the day off and having some friends over for a frag-fest. I have the game pre-ordered and have been reading everything I can find about Halo 2. It looks to be one of the best games ever. It was the main reason I bought an XBox, BTW. And I have a feeling I'm not the only one.
From Scobleizer.
Posted by Phil at 08:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Oakley Thump MP3 Sunglasses
These would be awesome for mountain biking / skiing:
The official specs: USB 2.0, 128MB/256MB of storage, comes in 7 colors, with polarized tinted lenses. Price? $500.
From Engadget.com
Posted by Phil at 08:17 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 31, 2004
iMac G5s on the Showroom Floor
I thought this picture from the floor in Paris does a lot better job of illustrating what the new iMac G5s look like in real life than Apple's product images. Plus it gives me an excuse to remind you guys we've already talked about it once today, but you keep getting distracted by the Ellis interview and forgetting to scroll down. I forgive you. (Thanks, Knutmo!)
Look - Full Size Image [Gizmodo]
[Gizmodo]
Posted by Phil at 09:22 PM
August 28, 2004
DOS (Almost) Crashes Mars Rover
Why didn't they use a custom Linux system?
From Wired News:
Ctrl-alt-del: The communications failure that nearly brought NASA's Spirit mission to Mars to an early end in January was caused by an unforeseen aspect of the DOS file system, a Jet Propulsion Laboratory scientist said Monday.
During a presentation at Stanford University's Hot Chips conference, JPL software developer Robert Denise said his team did not anticipate that a DOS file system containing directory information would continue to grow after other files had been deleted from the Spirit rover's flash memory. This oversight, coupled with an instruction to copy the contents of Spirit's flash memory into its limited random access memory launched the rover into a nearly disastrous cycle of errors and reboots.
Fortunately for NASA, the JPL team was able to upload a software upgrade and disable the copy instruction before the rebooting completely drained the rover's batteries.
Spirit has performed well ever since, according to NASA. In April, the agency extended the rover's mission -- along with that of its twin, Opportunity -- for an additional five months. Both rovers have already detected evidence of the water that is thought to have once existed on Mars.
Posted by Phil at 12:08 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 18, 2004
A Better eBay RSS Engine!
And I’m not just saying that because I helped put it together. Seriously, you’ve got a lot more options with this sucker - and we’re planning on adding more (including support for different syndication formats and JavaScript output for easier personal auction lists for your blog). (1) Complete the form to your satisfaction; (2) Press the ‘Search’ button or tap your Enter key; (3) Subscribe to or syndicate the resulting RSS URL! Yes, it’s really that easy - and if you’re an eBay addict, then this will quickly become your best friend.
Posted by Phil at 07:40 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 14, 2004
Scoble Responds
Phil says my blog talked him into buying an Xbox.
Cool. I wish I could tell you what my son and I are playing on ours, but if we told you we'd have to, um, well let's just say it's best we didn't discuss it here.
My gamertag is "Scobleizer" though. See ya online!
From [The Scobleizer Weblog]
Thanks for the link! I should thank you for getting me hooked on RSS too. I was at the first Gnomedex and listened to you talk about this strange technology called RSS and a program called Radio. I had some questions afterwards, you were nice enough to answer them, I "got" RSS, and have been hooked since (that's what makes Gnomedex so cool BTW, the ability to interact with the speakers).
The Live service has me addicted. I have four or five friends who I am pressuring to get an XBox so we can play online together. Two commitments so far. How's that for blog marketing?
How about some Live RSS feeds? For example, I would like some feeds that show how many players are currently online, or how many players are online playing the game of my choice, say Rainbow Six 3 Black Arrow. Or how about feeds for rankings, new members, etc?
Also, I would like to see more about the Live service on Channel9. The .NET geek inside of me wants to know as much as I can (legally) about the service.
Now that would be cool!
Posted by Phil at 09:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The invisible paradigm shift ...
This is an interesting article about SharePoint - a relatively new set of products offered by Microsoft. I do this type of stuff at work, and I can attest that it is very powerful and very cool - both from a user's perspective and a developer's perspective.
Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) has to be one of the most incredible technologies we offer today - and not so much because it implements some revolutionary new capability. Document collaboration tools have been around for the last several years. The most powerful aspect of WSS is how users can easily adopt it using the natural sharing processes (and the applications) they are comfortable with today. Other solutions I've seen require the user to think outside of this process, hence they are never seriously adopted without training. WSS can help create a subtle culture shift in how you share information.
Here's a simple example ...
I want to share a document (or three) with my team. I'm an average person - I don't understand what a portal or an online workspace is, but I do have the concept of a file attachment figured out, or so my Exchange mailbox administrator tells me every time I exceed my quota. I include my documents in an e-mail I compose in Outlook 2003. With WSS, I'm presented with two alternatives: a regular attachment (we know this route) or a shared attachment. I want to share this attachment with my team, and by selecting the second option and sending the e-mail a number of things happen for me automatically.
1. WSS creates an online workspace for me and places a copy of my documents there.
2. WSS gives all the people on the "To:" line access to the site.
3. The e-mail includes an invitation to the recipient to participate in my new online workspace.
Now, let's think about this from the perspective of the recipient. I get this e-mail with three attachments and a linked invitation to an online workspace. Honestly, I don't know what a workspace is, but I do know those attachments are the documents I was asked to make changes to. Instead of clicking on the link, I open the file attachment. This doesn't pose a problem - Office 2003 asks the recipient if they would like to see the most recent version of this attachment and downloads the latest copy from the workspace if they request it.
Bottom line: The sender only ever needs to relay these files once. It doesn't matter how many changes we make as a team, every time I open the e-mail attachment I can refer to the latest copy of that document. Office 2003 also pulls in all the functionality of the online workspace directly into the application. Version control, user permissions, change alerts, task management, etc. are all presentated as though they were features of the Office application within the Shared Workspace task pane. Notice, my IT department didn't have to provision the workspace or manage the permissions for me.
I won't even go into the IM capabilities that integrate with WSS (and Office 2003) that work really well in these types of situations. The basic idea is that users can figure this out - it's not significantly different from the process they use to share information today. Still, it adds a much better collaboration environment and makes it much easier for IT to manage.
I use this feature nearly every day. Give it a whirl yourself! (at http://www.sharepointtrial.com)
My only serious problem with WSS is we haven't released any really thorough end-user documentation. Perhaps someone on the product team is taking my commentary above a little too much to heart. :) Users can't do everything with their eyes closed but they can certainly get started. If you enjoy really bad background music and would like to see a Flash demo of how this works, take a look here (press the mute button when the music finally becomes intolerable).
Posted by Phil at 01:07 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 11, 2004
From Blog to Live
Recently, I have been following Scoble's blog. He works for Microsoft, as an evangelist for their technology (yes, that is a real position at Microsoft).
A few months ago, he started talking about how he had bought an XBox and was amazed by the online play with his son who was in another state.
"Cool" I thought, but filed it away in the back of my mind. Then, Scoble starts talking about Channel9, the new developer community that is a behind-the-scenes look at Microsoft.
"Even better" I though. So I start watching the Channel9 site for news and interesting info.
About two weeks ago, Channel9 does a series on the XBox developers. A Channel9 "series" usually consists of video (shot by Scoble) of the developers who write the actual product. In each segment, actual XBox Live developers were interviewed.
For those who don't know, Live is an online service for the XBox that lets you play games with other players via the Internet. You can also talk with people while you are playing via a headset you wear.
"Wow" I though. Microsoft is doing some pretty cool stuff with their XBox Live service. I had known about Live since it came out, but kind of dismissed it as a cheap service to make money. But then I started looking at the games the developers were talking about. And reading about them.
Next thing I know, I'm sold. I went out and bought an XBox, got hooked up to the Live service, and have been playing Rainbow Six 3 - Black Arrow and having a blast. The ability to talk with the person you are playing with or against is amazing. It adds another dimension to the game when you can tell your team "I am watching the door on the left" while they go in the door on the right. Very cool.
So there you have it. Who says marketing through blogs doesn't work?
Posted by Phil at 10:20 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
July 06, 2004
Besieged Movie Industry Suffers Record Takings
This is funny. Every movie I go to now has an add before it saying "Don't Pirate. Movies...they're worth it."
What's even funnier is the guy on screen who's saying "I put my life on the line for a stunt, and then someone comes along and with a couple of clicks steals the movie". Blah Blah Blah.
Instead of hiring some poor stunt guy to complain for them, why don't the movie execs pay him more out of their record profits?
The BBC is reporting that the movie industry, in yet another illustration of just how much damage the Internet is doing to the long-suffering ... [BBC Article]
Posted by Phil at 07:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 17, 2004
GMail
I finally got a GMail account. Heard that the price for an invite had dropped to $20 from over $100 on eBay.
It was not hard to get one either. I bid on two or three auctions and lost, and immediately had people sending me emails that said "I noticed you were interested in a GMail account. I can sell you one for $X. Call me at..."
GMail is very nice. I plan on using it for my other "main" account. Feel free to email me.
pdsphil@gmail.com
Posted by Phil at 02:34 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack