Well, that was fun.
All my Dreamhost-based sites have been hacked and defaced by Chinese hackers, apparently to send spam and to use as a reference source for phishing attempts. All but the main site have been taken offline while we harden the site and do some security upgrades. Not sure how they got in; perhaps a compromised password? Anyway, I think the problem has been cleared up. Watch this space for more details.
6月4日，天安门广场大屠杀
6月4日，天安門廣場大屠殺
A couple of weeks ago, I went to a seminar put on by Fog Creek Software. They’re doing a “world tour” to show off the newest version of FogBugz, their project tracking and scheduling software. It’s pretty cool; there are a lot of new features and enhancements that have been added to the current version. My lab uses FogBugz, but we’re a couple of versions behind. Time to convince someone to upgrade!
One of the new features they’re very proud of is evidence-based scheduling, a way of predicting completion dates. If you’re ever dealt with programmers, or the managers of programmers, you know that this is one of the hardest parts of of software development. They seem to have nailed it pretty well. Joel Spolsky explains the details in the link above, but briefly, it uses a modified Monte Carlo algorithm to predict the outcome based on past performance.
Another very nice feature is their integrated Wiki. I’ve installed and used various flavors of Wiki software, and while they’re certainly useful, they do tend to be a bit rough. There are quite a few free and open-source versions, a few commercial versions, and I find them all lacking on one way or another. Currently I’m using TikiWiki, and while it does work, the user interface for posting could be better. (Yes, I know it’s open source, and I should fix it instead of complaining, but I’m lazy and too busy. So complain I will.) Anyway, the Fog Creek guys have done a pretty seamless integration of a WYSIWYG Wiki into FogBugz. I’ve written and asked them to release their Wiki as Open Source, but so far no reply.
Here is a picture quality comparison between a normal DVD and a broadcast high-definition signal. Typically DVD is the best resolution ordinary consumers (as opposed to early adopters or TV geeks) can get. According to this source, real broadcast hi-def is noticeably better. This is the first actual example I’ve seen using screen shots from both formats.
… where it is illegal for you to know this number: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 (For the non-technical, that’s a hexidecimal number. We programmers prefer that notation. In decimal, it’s 13,256,278,887,989,457,651,018,865,901,401,704,640.)
Why is this number special? It’s the encryption key that controls the DRM (Digital Restriction Management) for every high definition (HD-DVD and BluRay) DVD sold to date. If you are a very talented programmer, you can use that magic number to decrypt and back up your original DVDs. A consortium of media companies claims they own it, and under the US Digital Millenium Copyright Act, they can censor anyone who publishes it.
My tax refund showed up last weekend, so it’s time to spend some money. Some of the cash is already allocated for a new hot water heater, which I’m going to need very soon. Aside from that, though, I’m considering a high-def TV. There is a bewildering array of choices, and darn few good sources of information. Here’s a guide to what’s what in the HDTV world. They explain the terms and don’t try to sell you anything, which is refreshingly unusual.
Talk about hucksterism in consumer electronics…. I stopped by my local Circuit City and Best Buy stores last night to look and ask some questions. Talk about high-pressure sales. Sheesh. The Best Buy idiot did everything up to and including maligning my masculinity because I didn’t want to buy the piece of crap he was pushing. The Circuit City guys (yes, plural; at one point I had SIX of them standing around me!) were basically clueless in terms of technical details and features. One of them flat-out lied to me about the computer input specs, then told me in front of the floor manager that he didn’t.
I also stopped by Target. I bought my last TV from them. They have a small selection if LCD HDTVs, but all the floor models were showing a low-def off-the-air signal, snow and all, which makes it pretty tough to evaluate the picture quality. And the department sales rep didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’, and couldn’t have cared less. It was pretty obvious that he thought I was just some rich clueless yuppie and he didn’t give a rat’s ass what I wanted.
So, it looks like yet another thing I’ll be buying from Amazon. I wonder if they sell hot water heaters?
Someone asked where I got that photo that’s current gracing the site header. It’s actually a bunch of individual photos stitched together with the demo version of Autostitch, a program that does automatic image stitching. It’s pretty slick.
Oh, and the image itself is taken from the path on the jetty that separates the Mission Bay inlet from the San Diego River. The big white building in the center of the picture is the Hyatt Islandia. The Sea World tower is toward the right. My sailboat is in that forest of masts between the Sea World tower and the bay.
This says it all about my job at the moment….
Scott Adams, who’s best known for being the creator of Dilbert, has been fighting with episodes of spasmodic dysphonia for the last two years. He’s explored several treatments, including Botox injections into the throat. He’s considered surgery. He’s in the early phases of a non-medical treatment that seems to be working. That blog entry discusses the problem and how all the info about treatment options is pretty much controlled by big pharma.
I find this fascinating. I have an old friend who’s plagued by the adductor form of SD. He’s not rich and famous and he doesn’t have insurance that pays for any kind of treatment, so he basically lives with the problem. In a way, it’s kind of funny; if I call him and he responds in a kind of Gregorian Chant, I know it isn’t a good day. And forget going out anywhere when he’s having an episode. (He can’t talk and I’m mostly deaf. Wasn’t that a comedy with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor?)
By the way, I recommend Scott’s blog. It’s a fascinating look into the mind behind Dilbert.
This week it’s been widely noticed that Google had a hiccup and has downgraded the PageRank of a lot of well-respected blogs. It’s been particularly damaging to well-respected sex blogs, like Violet Blue’s Tiny Nibbles and Susie Bright’s Journal. It’s also affected independent content producers like Comstock Films. It’s also hit major sex-positive sites, like BoingBoing. Rankings for big commercial porn producers don’t seem to have changed.
As usual when something changes, no one at Google is saying anything. While it may be coincidence, I’m finding it really hard to attribute this to an unintentional side effect of some minor change. There’s a lot of speculation that this is the beginning of a major Google Porn Purge. (Interestingly, a Google search for that exact string doesn’t bring up the site of the person who came up with it!)
If this is intentional, it’s the beginning of the end for Google as a search engine. The geeks who made them successful will be the same geeks who kill them. It’s happened before: Netscape, Yahoo, and Alta Vista have all been on the top of the heap. They’re all still around, but bad business decisions have made them minor players in the search engine world.