AtomicBaboon!?!

Via Threat Level I ran across a blog by a guy named Dancho Danchev called Mind Streams of Information Security Knowledge. He is an information security expert and managing director of Astalavista Group's Astalavista.com. You can read more about him here: Dancho Danchev's Section.

I mention it because he describes his research into the methods used by criminals and terrorist organizations to gather and distribute information, malware, etc. Threat Level mentioned him in a recent entry describing how Islamic Extremists are using Tor to anonymously distribute their material to and communicate with each other.

He also has information describing how malware and phishing attacks are performed exploiting unpatched client-side vulnerabilities. It's very valuable information. Know your enemy.

I am a member of the Free Software Foundation. I receive interesting e-mails from time to time from them and I got this one a few days ago.

If you are at a university which has a law school, please go to the university archives, and check the old course catalogs to see when classes in the law school began using the propaganda term "intellectual property" (see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html) in the names of courses. Please send the date, school, course title and description to rms@gnu.org.

Apparently RMS is doing some research. Could turn into something interesting. A couple days later I got this message from RMS forwarded to FSF members.

>From Richard Stallman:

The reason for the question about old law school course catalogs is that we're looking for historical information that shows when use of the propaganda term "intellectual property" became widespread. We are pretty sure this occurred in the 70s and 80s, but we want to find objective evidence about it.

Since we know that the term was widely used in the late 90s, there is no point sending references to the term from the 2000s. They won't show when the usage _started_. Likewise, the rare uses from long ago are not relevant to this question.

Law school course catalogues from the 70s and 80s can show when they started using that term. By checking them, you can provide evidence that directly relates to the question.

The way to look at the old catalogues from the 70s and 80s is to phone or visit the university library and ask where they are kept and how you can look at them.

You may be able to think of other ways to measure when use of that propaganda term became widespread. If so, please try them -- that information may be useful.

After reading "Do you need a Collaborator, or a Schemer?" I think I've identified the reason why projects I have attempted or been involved in in the past were never fruitful. I am a schemer as are many of my friends. I think we need a collaborator to get things moving. So, I am looking for a collaborator or collaborators who might be interested in a programming project. My initial thoughts are it will involve Python, Ajax, and C. Possibly using Django as the web frame work. If you read this and it sounds like something you'd be interested in let me know. My e-mail address is dfeather at acm dot org (or leave a comment with your e-mail address and I will contact you).

Right now it is just a vague idea and I hope to meet with some of my fellow schemers to get the idea more solidified soon. I don't want to get any more specific than that right now. If the languages and tools mentioned above change I will post an update about it.

I ran across this cool project via my Hack a Day rss feed: Real life xeyes. That would be a fun project to put together. The creator plans on putting up more details and some source code for the project this weekend.

Wikipedia: xeyes

I started getting a bunch of comment spam so I added CAPTCHA to the comments. If anyone leaves a comment and you notice any problems with it shoot me an e-mail. My e-mail address is in human readable form at the bottom of the page.

I am working on adding CAPTCHAS to my comments form. Things may or may not stop working at various times while I am doing this.

I think I need to adjust the layout of my site. I mentioned before that the way I have things setup doesn't lend itself well to adding more links. Having everything at the bottom like I do is a little cumbersome.

I may give in and do what everyone else is doing and put my links on the side(s). I ran across a GPL'd Word Press plugin for StumbleUpon that lists what you have recently stumbled... upon. I downloaded the source and plan on writing a Python version that I can use on my blog. If I do that I am not sure where I would put the list it produces in my current layout. I would also like to add more links to blogs and websites that I like.

I also need a cartoon baboon. I have an idea in my head and I have tried to get it down on paper but it never turns out the way I want. If any of you know good artists let me know. Maybe if I can explain what I am looking for to someone with a little more talent they could pull it off. A funny looking baboon with a green glowing behind would be funny.

I completed all the songs in Guitar Hero II with 5 stars on Medium difficulty last night. Now I am attempting to play them on Hard. That is an addicting game.

Tonight The Moxie is hosting a free show at The Gillioz. They have details on their site. I am going to try to make it over there. The Gillioz has 1100 seats in it, making it the largest theater in Springfield. I have only seen the lobby so far and it is a pretty amazing building. Then I might grab a tasty beer at Patton Alley.

Anyway... I could keep rambling... but I need to get some work done so I will stop here. Have a good day.

I stumbled upon a list of free university lectures today and came across one that is an introduction to Python. Python is an easy to understand language, has a huge set of libraries available, and there is a very helpful community of python programmers behind it. If you want to learn to write code Python is a great place to start. That being said, you might find this set of free lectures about Python programming from the Computer Science Department at Caltech helpful. I haven't gone through them yet but it has Powerpoint and PDF documents available for the lectures and also Lab Assignments to give you something to write.

CS 11: Python Track
If you decide to do this and need any help don't hesitate to drop me a line. My e-mail address is shown at the very bottom of the page... or leave a comment and I will get back to you.

From Wikipeida: John W. Backus

John Warner Backus (December 3, 1924 – March 17, 2007) was an American computer scientist. He led the team that invented the first high-level programming language (FORTRAN) and was the inventor of Backus-Naur form (BNF), the almost universally used notation to define formal language syntax. He also did research in function-level programming and helped to popularize it.

He received the 1977 ACM Turing Award "for profound, influential, and lasting contributions to the design of practical high-level programming systems, notably through his work on FORTRAN, and for seminal publication of formal procedures for the specification of programming languages."

I like this quote of his found in the New York Times Obituary about him:

"You need the willingness to fail all the time," he said. "You have to generate many ideas and then you have to work very hard only to discover that they don’t work. And you keep doing that over and over until you find one that does work."

He laid the foundation for what makes it possible for me to do what I do today.

Via Slashdot: John W. Backus Dies at 82; Developed FORTRAN

Here's a pretty funny song: Threes Rev. 1.1

Three things trust above all else;
Your knowledge of your craft,
That someone makes a profit,
And that you will get the shaft.

Someone patented a linked list implementation. One of the most basic building blocks of organizing and accessing lists of data in a program and someone got a patent on one method in 2006. Why people feel the need to file software patents for blindingly obvious and basic things like this is beyond me. I want to see these people try to enforce this. Linked List - United States Patent 7028023.

Via Slashdot: Linked List Patented in 2006.

This is exciting stuff: Start-up demos quantum computer. I wonder what sort of language they right their programs in.

I ran across this article which includes information about a new Master of Arts program at Michigan State University in Serious Game Design. Today's Homework: Make Good Games. Veerrry interesting.

I just found this comment in some code I wrote 3 years ago:

Beginning in <SomeVersionOfMyCode> this class will slowly be replaced by <SomeJavaClassIWrote> and its elite superiority and awesome goodness with peanuts, caramel, and chocolate.

I disguised the version number and name of the class just in case. Funny comment though. Elite superiority is pretty over the top... a little egotistical. It would have been better if that Java class I wrote had peanuts, caramel, and chocolate methods.

Here are some projects I want to try:

1. Write "atomiCommerce" - Started
2. Build a coffee table with a built-in Atari 2600 - 2nd Atari for this obtained, Need a house with a garage to work in next
3. Build small video cameras that will stream what they capture over a WiFi connection
4. Build an LCD projector - Need a house first
5. Build a media center PC for the entertainment center - Just thought of this last night. I have a TiVo in the meantime.

Some important, time consuming things are getting ready to change. When that happens, I will have alot more time to do the things I want to do. It will be good. More on that when I can share it. There are also alot of cool and inspirational projects in Make Magazine. Their projects have given me ideas of my own and gave me yet another reason I need a house with a big garage to work in.

I want to do something cool!

I just fixed my feeds. So, now instead of having the title of an entry as the title and description in the feed, you get the title as the title and the body of the entry as the description of the feed. Hooray for permissions.

I broke the RSS and Atom feeds some how while trying to fix them... cause they were broken already. But now they are REALLY broken. For anyone who cares. I will get around to completely unbreaking them **"when the spirit moves me."

**Translation: later.

I threw together another style/look. You'll notice it says AtomicBaboon.net... that's because that is a new domain name I bought because I thought it was funny... and stuff... anyway. I can't exactly see if everything for my style is here... there should be an atom looking logo in the upper left, and some gray boxes with rounded corners around my entries here. If you happen to read this and everything look like it is there based on what I have just described, please leave a comment and let me know. I will check it when I get home, but it would be nice to know before then. Also, tell me if it totally sucks. Thanks.

Interesting list of the top 20 programming languages. It's interesting to see Python listed above C#. I was also surprised to see D on there. I have heard of it but I didn't realize it was that popular. It would be interesting to see a list like that taking for specific regions of our country, or the world for that matter. I think the list would look a little different for the Mid-Western United States. I would expect to see RPG in there. Blog: Top 20 Programming Languages.

Well, this has been pretty interesting. Django is really really easy to use. For having written a very small amount of code I have a fairly functional blog. It will be really easy to add more features to it to. I need to add support for trackbacks, generate RSS and Atom feeds, add Digg links (not that anyone would Digg anything I have, but what the heck.) I will probably try to use delicious for my "Other" links as well and have it e-mail me when someone leaves a comment. Lot's of room to add stuff. At some point I need to make the comment system more robust to attempt to thwart comment spammers. I also need to be able to save entries as drafts before publishing them and all that. Lots to do still, but this works for now.