Category Archives: Uncategorized

On last weekend’s attacks in Khartoum

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I started the article on the attack, although by the time that I started it, the curfew was already in place in Khartoum.

What’s weird about this conflict is the following:

  • The Darfur conflict has become (in fact, this is relatively old news) part of a wider, long-running bitchfest between Chad and Sudan.
  • Both immediate sides in the Darfur conflict (the Sudanese government and the JEM) are Islamists from slightly different schools of thought.
  • The Southern Sudan government, mostly run by Christians and pagans (as in traditional spirit-oriented/driven animists) is allying with the Sudanese government against JEM and allied Darfuri rebel groups.
  • The JEM has identified the overthrow of the Bashir government in Khartoum – rather than simple secession of Darfur – as their main goal, hence the attack.

So what does this mean for Western concerns about Sudan? Is the rancor being raised because the government is Islamist or is it because of Sudan’s questionable partnership with the PRC?

Unfortunately, we can’t call these people by the phone and ask exactly what they’re intending to do with their future goals (nah, only approvaed “journalists” can do that), so that we in the West can do is stay where we are, mewl about a conflict that seems increasingly more like Alien vs. Predator, and wait and watch for someone to knock someone else over.

Correction to previous post

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There is a competitor to Ning: CrowdVine. However, it seems to be marketing primarily to conference and expo organizers at the moment.

Also, this old PC in the den has gotten slow again, even with AVG installed. Now I’m considering switching it back to bloody Ubuntu (again).

EDIT: more competition:

Ning

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Has anyone tried Ning yet?

I started using it around Monday/Tuesday night. It’s a “social network hosting service” (SNHS), where one can create his or her own little MySpace for free. It’s not that flexible in its social network management tools (feels alot like creating your first Geocities or Tripod website), but I haven’t heard of any competitors to Ning yet, which may be why Ning doesn’t feel all that professional.

However, while it is a bit late in the social networking boom to make a prediction, I think that Ning, as probably the first SNHS, could start a trend will redefine how we’ve long conceived of social networks as only being stand-alone services that can only appeal to the most financially-lucrative demographic.

Also, since the most generalized social networks tend to provide the ability to create interest-specfifc e-groups for free from within the network, what does this mean for the e-group if the social networks can now be created for free and for specfifc interests within the SNHS? Does this mean that the e-group become irrelevant, or does this mean that e-groups are now free to explore more specfic, more exclusive interests than those which would be allowed in a general SN like MySpace or Facebook?

Finally, what if Ning could be replicated in the 3d virtual world business? What if virtual world social networks can be created for free from within a virtual world network hosting service (VWNHS)? Virtual worlds like Second Life and IMVU already possess a few (but not most) of the trappings of a social network like MySpace and Facebook, namely, in-world e-groups, chat and messages.

Unfortunately, such may not occur for as long as development of virtual world social networks and models (a la Second Life or Kaneva) remains as prohibitevly expensive as it is right now. Lack of adoption of cross-platform standardization also results in unnecessary reinvention of wheels in this regard.

Otherwise, this one furry-oriented virtual world that was started in 2004 may have enjoyed some of the benefits and usage that has gone to the larger virtual worlds rather than shut down due to lack of attention and input.

Mythbuntu + Miro

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I’m wondering if a Mythbuntu box can wirelessly sync with one’s Miro libraries on a PC so that video and audio can be streamed from the PC to the TV, like a digital media receiver.

Furthermore, if MythTV is as great as this guy says, then I would like to be able to, through MythTV on TV with a remote, look through the Miro Guide and subscribe to appealing video feeds.

I understand that MythTV can do alot more than what Front Row on Apple TV can, but it seems like MythTV’s current concern and target is the cable/satellite-ripping (e.g., Tivo) folks, not those who are looking for a way to play their video RSS subscriptions (be it client-server or p2p/BIttorrent) on their TV.

Me, I’m trying to find other options besides cable/satellite TV, which is mostly on repeat for me since I tend to dwell in the 300s (movies and specialty stuff).

Green libertarianism

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An ideology that has no representing organizations and an emerging body of thought, but already has its own Wikipedia article.

Hilarious.

Considering that there’s no caucus in either the U.S. Green Party or the U.S. Libertarian Party, its kinda sad that the only organization that dares combines the terms “green” and “libertarian” is the Libertarian Green National Socialist Party, also known as the Libertarian Green Nazis.

Furthermore, Greens and Libertarians tend to hold intersecting, rather than parallel, views and interests. Greens tend to ally with the social Left (i.e., disenchanted progressives from the Democratic Party); in the U.S., Libertarians are presented as being more to the political right in comparison to the Republicans (attracting political paleoconservatives, though not as many social paleoconservatives as the Constitution Party).

Thus, the Greens are more concerned with social policies, while the Libertarians tend to be more concerned with political structure. The two could mesh, except that Libertarians will likely be somewhat turned off by the Greens’ advocacy for government restrictions on environmental waste and global warming, while the Greens will likely be somewhat turned off by the Libertarians’ advocacy of “laissez faire” (let the market sort out its own problems) economical liberalism. Plus, some social conservatives in the Libertarian party will find the Greens’ advocacy of such touchy progressive issues as abortion and same-sex marriage as going against their own moral or religious beliefs, while some social liberals in the Green Party will, in turn, find the Libertarians’ advocacy of limited government intervention as far as natural disaster relief and lower-class disparities to be a bit repugnant, selfish and middle-class-centric.

There might be hope for this ideology, however:

OK, nevermind…its kinda fucked right now.

Green libertarianism, if the Wikipedia definition is something to go off of, will advocate an ecologist, socially progressive approach to the environment without much support from government and more support from a laissez faire-driven economy.

This might be an ideology that is perfectly fitting for those who focus on the promotion of Green technology in business (currently the rage in media, corporate and government outlets right now, given the current limitations forced by the lesser amount of oil and natural gas being exported in the world recently) but are also pro-lesser-government and pro-free-speech/expression, including “geeks”.

I don’t think that Green libertarianism is equatable with Green anarchism, however. Green anarchism, according to the article, focuses on the detrimental, opressive uses of technology, and is more aligned with techno-primitivism (think “Neo-Luddite“, but going way, way back); it is also very pro-animal rights/justice, and I seriously doubt that Green libertarianism, or its preceding general ideologies, have as much of a lock or medium of expression on the animal rights issue as do the Green anarchists. At best, I think that those who may be inclined toward Green libertarianism may or may not include those who are inclined toward the defense of animal rights.

GPPPU?

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In relation to what I wrote yesterday, I would like to mention my idea of what Nvidia could be working on with their purchase of AGEIA in February.

I call it the GPPPU: General-purpose computing on physics processing units.

In other words, a physics processing unit that can also handle most of the applications that are usually dedicated to GPUs. It will be akin to the GPGPU, which uses “a GPU, which typically handles computation only for computer graphics, to perform computation in applications traditionally handled by the CPU”.

In the GPGPU arena, Nvidia is already competing with ATI (now owned by AMD); it is also in a war of words with Intel over the fate of the traditional CPU.

But if Nvidia is working on making a GPU that can do a CPU’s job, then how will they have the time and money to make a PPU that can do a GPU’s job?

Who will buy Bigfoot Networks?

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I’m wondering if Intel or AMD will buy Bigfoot Networks, the company that made the Killer NIC.

The company was founded back in 2004, and the Killer NIC has received quite a bit of fanfare from such corporate allies as NewEgg and WidowPC.

Just like fellow similar fabless semiconductor startup AGEIA (which was purchased by NVIDIA in February this year, which means that NVIDIA’s future GPUs will incorporate the much-touted PhysX PPU’s technology), Bigfoot also made some fluff pieces of its own for the public:

So here’s the question: do any of the major semiconductor manufacturers (Intel, Nvidia, AMD/ATI) see in Bigfoot Networks a potential cash cow replete with tasty intellectual property goodness? Do the CPU and GPU manufacturers feel that the Killer NIC’s network processing capabilities can be fused into a GPU, GPGPU or CPU?

Well, we can at least exclude Intel from this query: they bought network card manufacturer Xircom in 2001. Xircom was itself one of the first processor manufacturers to focus on networking accessories for the growing notebook computer market.

So now that leaves us with AMD/ATI and Nvidia. The two companies may be interested in Bigfoot’s direct marketing to the PC gaming demographic, which is also the target for AMD/ATI’s and Nvidia’s GPUs.

I only ask about a potential buyout of Bigfoot because I seriously doubt that Bigfoot Networks will last much longer as a startup. Startups tend to either fizzle-out/deadpool or be bought out by another, larger public corporation, or so goes the popular wisdom of this generation.

“Animated MediaWiki”

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Right now, there’s only this section at Wikimedia Commons for SVG animations.

However, what if someone were to create an extension of MediaWiki that would allow for user creation of SVG animations through wikitext?

With this hypothetical “Animated MediaWiki” extension, the wiki can also treat SVG animations like full text pages, with tables of content at the beginning of the animation that are linked to specific parts or intervals of the animation.

Raster images, other vector images, audio and even video can be embedded into the animations via wikitext.

Navigational templates can exist for navigation between separate animations for context; as usual, place them on the side or at the end of the animation.

Particular SVG animation loops or sprites, no matter how small, can also be chopped from the original larger animation and uploaded as separate generic animation piece/template that can be used in other animations.

Miro + Apple TV

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So I’m sure that you’ve heard of Miro and Apple TV.  Miro’s a video-downloading and video-playing software application based on the Mozilla architecture, and Apple TV is a set-top box that can play downloaded video on your TV either directly from the Internet or through syncing with iTunes on your PC (Windows or OS X).

So what about syncing your feeds and files between Miro and Apple TV? Is it possible to do, so that you can subscribe to video feeds from YouTube or Bittorrent through Miro and play them on your Apple TV or other digital media receiver?

Well, here are the few options that are available at the moment for those who want to play their Miro-downloaded video on Apple TV:

  • Install Perian on Apple TV (or, if you prefer, VLC)
  • Install Miro directly on Apple TV (Miro has issues after installation, however).

I’m hoping that there will be easier options in comparison to having to go through such hacks to get greater video-reception capabilities for your TV as afforded by Miro.