Omnia Mutantur

Beautiful video of a starfish-shaped robot learning of its own capabilities and developing a gait.

Found on Technovelgy.

Ricardo Science and Technology

I’ve just discovered PsyncX, a free and open source back up tool you can download here. I’m using it to create a synchronized backup of my files to an encrypted volume on a separate disk, and it works rather well (albeit with the occasional crach). Options are sparse, but it just right for my needs. It’s basically a graphic interface for psync, so those of you with cron jobs and command lines coming out of your ears might not need it.

Ricardo Science and Technology

Could well be an explanation of DRM.

Ricardo Freedom, Random funny stuff, Science and Technology

On Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End all hardware and operating systems have embedded Digital Rights Management software, a fact that while Vinge doesn’t specifically explain it, probably outlawed operating systems such as Linux which you have under your control (and not the other way around).

Now a guy in the U.S. who has been convicted of uploading a copy of the Star Wars movie has been forced by the court to switch to Windows if he wants to use a computer, because they want to track him using software that is not available on Linux.

Lord knows we need them dangerous criminals tracked.

Ricardo Freedom, News and politics, Science and Technology

I know it sounds like a How-To book by Abdul Alhazred, but No Starch Press is coming out with a book called Forbidden LEGO, for creating such things as a continuous-fire ping-pong ball launcher. Here’s a video of a toy gun that shoots LEGO plates:

Found via Gizmodo, where they have another video of the gun.

I for one can’t wait until small plastic pieces are banned from U.S. airplanes.

Ricardo Random funny stuff, Science and Technology

Some group is advocating blocking Firefox from accessing some sites, and has set up a site to explain their reasons. Their argument is that Firefox provides an easy way to block ads and – get this – watching a site without ads is theft.

Numerous web sites exist in order to provide quality content in exchange for displaying ads. Accessing the content while blocking the ads, therefore would be no less than stealing. Millions of hard working people are being robbed of their time and effort by this type of software.

If I’m not even willing to look at your ads, that means I’m not your target market. If you don’t want your articles publicly accessible, don’t publish them – otherwise you have to consider the people with ad blockers as the cost of playing the game. Or even better: if your stuff is so great then move to a subscription mechanism, and people will likely be happy to pay.

But even leaving such small things as rational concerns and the structure of the web itself aside, blocking Firefox will do you no good: having Firefox pretend to be some other browser is even easier than blocking ads.

Ricardo News and politics, Science and Technology

Very detailed article on automating server backups using Amazon’s S3 system, which I’ve recently trying out using myself for one of my Assembla-hosted projects.

PS: Yes, I’m making the Assembla backups myself. I’m not too keen on giving someone else the secret access key.

Ricardo Programming, Science and Technology

AT&T has a statement on their site where they (kind of) respond to the allegations that they helped the NSA in spying on American citizens.

The news media have carried reports alleging that AT&T is participating in an unlawful NSA terrorist surveillance program. Unfortunately, the law does not permit AT&T to respond to those allegations.

The U.S. Department of Justice has stated that AT&T may neither confirm nor deny AT&T’s participation in the alleged NSA program because doing so would cause “exceptionally grave harm to national security” and would violate both civil and criminal statutes. Under these circumstances, AT&T is not able to respond to such allegations.

So basically, they have a policy protecting the privacy of the government agencies, not yours. I guess I know which carrier not to go with when the telecommunications market gets opened around here.

Here’s original page.

Ricardo Freedom, News and politics, Science and Technology

Great speech by Clay Shirky about how much people love doing something is an indicator of if it will succeed.

Originally found via BoingBoing.

Ricardo Personal, Programming, Science and Technology

I am baffled by the absurdity of somebody arguing that we can’t possibly descend from simians because a banana fits perfectly in our hand, so I’ll let them speak for themselves.

Ricardo Random funny stuff, Science and Technology