Sunday, August 3. 2008
For a few bucks, I can buy a camera that attaches to my computer. I'm tempted to buy a slightly more expensive one that could attach to my mailbox and watch traffic going past my house. I'd use the video to help the police catch any criminals who enter our neighborhood and commit crimes.
Continue reading "Scary Idea: Open Source License Plate Recognition"
Thursday, June 19. 2008
I've got a rare eye problem, which may or may not be AVMD. Since I found no posts from patients with this problem, I'm posting one.
Continue reading "Living with Adult-onset vitelliform macular dystrophy (AVMD)"
Tuesday, June 10. 2008
Most programmers remain blissfully unaware of the new speed bottleneck. L2 cache miss penalties now run anywhere from 100 to 300 CPU cycles. Even a 2% L2 cache miss rate can easily dominate runtime.
Monday, June 9. 2008
I would like to find two or three guys at UNC, Duke, or NC State, to start one or two practice startups over the summer. I'd organize and
run it, putting in about 4 hours/week, while the students would be free to put in as much or as little time as they desire. There are plenty of good ideas for startups. The hard part is finding good teams. Do you know anyone who might be the right kind of geek/student for this sort of startup training?
The first idea I'd throw out is building an ultra-high performance processor for executing high-end EDA applications faster than is
possible on traditional Windows/Intel machines. These would be based on Xilinx FPGAs for computation, and would win on speed through high performance parallel SRAM banks and L3 caches. The main technology breakthrough would be a new C compiler that can optimize memory access for large sets of data across several external memory banks and caches, avoiding the the traditional Von Neumann bottleneck. Benchmarks I've done at sf.net/projects/datadraw show cache performance now dominates runtime for a wide class of EDA applications.
Feel free to pass this around, or post it. If anyone wants to e-mail me, to be sure to get through my aggressive spam-filter, please put
'startup' somewhere in the subject.
Saturday, March 8. 2008
I learned as a child that "the worst word in the world" is nigger. I've never used it, other than here. I'm a strong supporter of the civil rights movement, and am easily offended when I hear others putting down black people. However, while not "racist" according the Webster's Dictionary, I contribute to the plight of blacks throughout the country passively.
Continue reading "I'm Passivly Prejudiced. Are you?"
Thursday, January 10. 2008
The data is damning. Let's keep a spot light on this issue for a while, just to be sure we aren't being hoodwinked. Also, this may be the second time the NH election has been stolen by compromised electronic voting machines.
Thursday, January 3. 2008
Junk Science author Steven Milloy has done more to harm us than any man since Mr. Thomas Midgley Jr., who invented leaded gasoline, Freon, and Chlorofluorocarbons. How much better would we be had they never been born...
Saturday, December 29. 2007
I've cross-compiled gdbserver for Android. This allows gdb to be used to debug native C applications on the emulator. If you want to debug your native C application, follow these steps:
Continue reading "Debugging Android Native C Applications with gdb"
The Andriod kernel can be debugged in gdb just like other kernels run in qemu. The steps I took were:
Continue reading "Android Kernel Debugging"
Thursday, December 27. 2007
At one point, I wanted to debug code inside libc, so compiled my own version of the Code Sourcery tool chain. If you need to compile the tool chain for Android, follow these instructions.
Continue reading "Android Hacking"
Monday, October 22. 2007
Wow... Fox news gets the scoop for a change! Kudos to Fox News for publishing an insightful message from our military. While you're at it, you might also read this gem
Wednesday, October 10. 2007
After Apple purposely borked my iPhone, I'm no longer willing to buy smartphones that can't be programmed by users. OpenMoko needs a lot of work, but I've purchased the Ne01973, and I'll see if I can help out in some way. Since most OpenMoko users weren't previously iPhone hackers, I'm hoping this wish-list will shed some light on what features might be popular if implemented.
Continue reading "Wish List for OpenMoko"
Friday, October 5. 2007
The first generation of "self-replicating machines" (like RepRap) wont actually self-replicate. All they will do is make parts that can be assembled into a copy of themselves. This will create an even larger market for cheap labor to assemble stuff, much like we currently have in China. At some point, the self-replicating machines will be able to make a robotic assembler, and all the assembly workers will be replaced. I predict the impact on this under-class will be catastrophic.
Machines are coming that will be capable of making themselves, as well as other useful stuff. The first generation of these, the "RepRap", is a rapid prototyper machine capable of making it's own parts (with some exceptions of mass-produced stuff, like screws).
Thursday, October 4. 2007
It seems that Apple has been shutting down sites that try to find iPhone users who wish to join any class-action law-suit related to their purposely breaking user's phones with their 1.1.1 software update. I finally found the unmodified version of the post. Please copy a reply to this post to both classaction@myndex.com and classaction@billrocks.org. I will hold any information you send me (yep, I'm Bill) confidential, and will only release it to lawyers involved in the suit(s).
The full unmodified original text follows:
email: To: iPhone Owners denied warranty service.
From: MTI
Seeking respondents for possible class action lawsuit against Apple Inc. relating to refusal to service iPhones and related accessories under warranty.
Classes: There are three potential classes in this case:
1) Persons who own an iPhone and used software to access the available flash drive space on the iPhone, without modifying iPhone firmware nor installing 3rd party applications on the iPhone itself. Among this class are users of the commercial product "iPhoneDrive", a third party application that allows the iPhone to be used as a storage device, but that does not alter iPhone firmware nor install executables onto the iPhone itself.
Persons of this class must have been refused warranty service by Apple or its associated Apple stores, with such refusal being due to respondent's use of iPhoneDrive, iToner, or other external application that does NOT alter firmware.
2) Persons who own an iPhone, and who installed 3rd party software on the iPhone for the purpose of expanding its functionality. Examples of such programs are "Installer.app" and the native applications that it installs into the iPhone.
Persons of this class must have restored their iPhone firmware back to factory defaults, or be seeking services for a non-firmware nor software issue, such as a defective touch screen, defective battery, or other purely hardware failure under warranty, and have been refused service due to their past usage of third party applications.
3) Persons who unlocked their iPhone to allow for its use on networks other than ATT.
Persons of this class must have restored their iPhone firmware back to factory defaults, or be seeking services for a non-firmware nor software issue, such as a defective touch screen, defective battery, or other purely hardware failure under warranty, and have been refused service due to their past usage of third party applications.
If you are a member of one of the above classes, please respond by sending an email to:
classaction@myndex.com
In the subject line, please state only "Class One" , "Class Two", or "Class Three", depending on the class that you belong to. Emails with subject lines other that one of these three will be ignored.
In the body of the email, please state your name and contact information (to be held strictly confidential), and the circumstances relating to Apple's refusal of warranty service. Please be as complete as possible, and try to include the following:
1) Date you purchased the iPhone, and the state where purchased
2) A complete description of the third party applications you used with your iPhone (for members of class three, the method of unlock).
3) The reason for the need for warranty service
4) If upgrading to firmware 1.1.1 appeared to result in the problem requiring service
5) If upgrading to iTunes 7.4.2 or later appeared to result in the problem requiring service
6) If you successfully did a "restore" prior to bringing the iPhone to Apple
7) The name of the Apple representative that refused service
8 ) The exact reason Apple stated that they were refusing service,
Regards,
MTI
G5 Mac OS X (10.4.10)
|
