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EricBall

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Blog Entries posted by EricBall

  1. EricBall
    A while back the wall wart for my Netgear wifi router died. I borrowed the one for my external drive as a temporary replacement, but I wanted a more permanent solution. This weekend was the community garage sale and I scored a Linksys WRT54G v4 for $5. This is the router which started the open firmware revolution, but I'm not sure I want to join the revolution.
     
    The problem is I'm more into stability and easy to use than features beyond what the stock firmware provides. Well, there are two features which would be nice to have:
    1. IPv6 firewall / tunnel blocking
    2. separate guest wifi (for the Nintendo DS which only supports WEP)
     
    But I look at the different options and I'm finding it very difficult to determine what I should be downloading...
     
    - Tomato doesn't have guest wifi
    - OpenWRT is has guest wifi, but it looks like not in the current release with the built-in open source driver
    - dd-WRT has guest wifi, but is a monolithic install and the current "stable" version is buggy
  2. EricBall
    The other day my wife casually said "my DS". Now, I have to admit that we may have discussed that my son's Nintendo DS was hers since he now has a 3DS, but I hadn't really considered it. The problem is my wife's interest in games doesn't match mine or my son's. And although she has more free time to play, her interest in a particular game can disappear quite quickly. In other words, she's the typical Facebook gamer.
     
    So how to possibly satisfy her needs? Hmm.... I've always wanted a flashcart for the DS. Just for homebrew, of course.... But it would certainly let my wife play games (homebrew, emulated or copied) without spending $$.
     
    After some research via the gbatemp.net forums, I learned there are really only three current options (in order of increasing cost):
    1. an R4 clone - which is okay for the DSlite, but won't work on the DSi or 3DS and doesn't support SDHC
    2. the R4i Gold or Acekard 2i which support SDHC and be used in the 3DS
    3. the SuperCard DSTWO which has an onboard CPU which is capable of running GBA and SNES emulators
     
    The main differences between #1 & #2 are SDHC - which isn't a big deal as 2GB is still plenty of space; and 3DS compatibility - the lack of which could be considered a feature.
     
    So that leaves whether it's worth ~$30 extra to play GBA & SNES games on the 3DS. While both are attractive, paying less than $8 (shipped) for an R4 clone with micro SD card and USB reader is a deal I can't refuse. Plus I can play SNES (and probably GBA) games on my Wii if I really want to.
  3. EricBall
    I have been making updates to my Panoramic Photo Gallery: https://sites.google.com/site/ericballpanorama/ both adding newly stitched panoramas and revising older ones adding metadata and a watermark. Now I've reworked my main page to list the panoramas by location rather than in a simple ToC. At the bottom I've linked one of the panoramas, but what I'd really like to do is make that a slide show or a random panorama. With a normal site this would all be done in Javascript, but as this is Google, it's gotta be a Google Gadget.
     
    Actually, in this case the gadget is mostly just a wrapper for the Javascript. I have a simple working gadget which randomly displays one panorama from a hard coded list. The problem is gadgets typically have a fixed height and the height of my panoramas varies. There's a gadget method which can be used to adjust the height, but I'm fighting with a the image being loaded asynchronously and therefore not knowing the height at the time the gadget is loaded.
  4. EricBall

    Raspberry Pi

    By EricBall,

    http://raspberrypi.org
     
    The Raspberry Pi is a credit card sized US$35 Single Board Computer with the following features:
    700 MHz ARM11, 1080p OpenGL ES 2.0 GPU with hardware H2.64 decode, 256MB RAM, SDHC slot, HMDI out, 2.0 USB jacks & RJ45 Ethernet port.
     
    From my perspective the biggest attractions are the low price and the HDMI output. I was seriously considering getting one and setting it up to play MAME, but now I have an even better idea: a DVD library.
     
    I jumped on the DVD bandwagon very early - IIRC I paid C$700 for my Panasonic A110 (which is still working) and I've put together a collection of a couple hundred DVDs. (Now I buy Blu-Rays.) It occurred to me a TB HD can store over a hundred DVDs. But how to play them back on my HDTV?
     
    I considered using my Wii, and there's even a port of MPlayer. However, the instructions a less than clear and seem to imply I'd need to install a custom IOS (system software), which is a bit beyond my comfort zone.
     
    I started looking at Media Devices to see what they offered, but then I remembered the Raspberry Pi had both an HDMI output and a USB port - and since it runs Linux, I bet there's software which will do what I want already (maybe even out of the box).
  5. EricBall

    Skyward Sword

    By EricBall,

    For Christmas I got Skyward Sword. Unfortunately, my wife didn't get my email about the game+controller bundle, so I had to pick up a Motion Pus controller before I could play it.
     
    I've played about 4 hours so far, so consider this a very early review.
     
    I will say there's been an awful lot of dialog in the game so far, on top of the intro backstory movie. I just hope they do something with Groose, or that was a whole whack of dialog which wasn't that necessary.
     
    The game - it's Zelda (so far). It hasn't quite caught my imagination like Occarina, but I have a feeling this one could get close. I just hope I'm not chasing Zelda for the entire game.
     
    I'm also not happy with the Motion Plus. Sure it's nice to be able to control your slashes, but that's the theory. In practice I'm still flailing away rather than carefully planning my strikes (especially with groups of enemies). The normal point at the screen control also seems more sluggish, although it might be the camera is getting confused by the Christmas tree lights.
     
    One thing I do like are the hint movies from the gossip stones. I was stuck on the eye lock at in the first temple. I thought the hint indicated I needed a bow & arrow, but I didn't know where I was supposed to have gotten it.
  6. EricBall
    In addition to the 2600 & 7800, I have the desire to program the Vectrex. I grew up in the golden age of video games and vector games were part of the magic. The Vectrex also uses a 6809 - the processor I first programming in ASM.
     
    In brief, the way the Vectrex draws vectors is:
    1. Set the Y velocity
    2. Set the X velocity
    3. Turn on the beam
    4. Turn on the integrators which change the X/Y velocity into X/Y position
    5. Wait for timer to expire
    6. Turn the integrators & beam off
    7. Repeat
     
    Back in the day for Atari this sequence was handled by a simple state machine which read a series of instructions stored by the main program. Years ago I thought it would be interesting to do something similar for the Vectrex by doing all of the movement via an interrupt routine which would return to the main program during step 5. Unfortunately, I've since learned the timer isn't for that many cycles so there's no point.
     
    But I also came across an interview with Christopher Salomon, who worked on the original DOS Vectrex Emulator and created VFrogger. He pointed out the Vectrex is a dead machine. No matter how much people enjoy it, no more will ever be made. (Especially for the Vectrex with it's vector CRT.) We might play games via emulators, but that hardly recaptures the magic of a true vector display.
     
    But it got me to thinking, I noted on another forum that games like Pac-Man are now over 30 years old, so the vast majority of machines which still exist are likely in private hands. Well the same could be said for old consoles. So why put a lot of effort into creating for somthing that's already dead?
     
    'Cause it's cool, I guess. And current platforms just don't have the same level of to-the-metal programming which I enjoy.
     
    And part of me still wants a Vectrex...
  7. EricBall

    Glitch - a free MMO

    By EricBall,

    Warning: if you have addictive game tendencies - don't start playing Glitch (more on why later).
     
    Glitch is an odd game - and not just because you squeeze chickens to obtain grain. It's a free-to-play game which you can play without paying. Unlike a typical FTP games, you can't use real money to buy in game resources, reduce action times, or additional actions. Real money may only be used to buy cosmetic items like clothing and furniture. (Well, it can be used to buy teleport tokens, which could be looked as a typical FTP cash item, but that's the only one.)
     
    And unlike the typical Facebook FTP game, all of the avatars you see in the world are controlled by other players.
     
    You've got the typical MMO skills development, questing, harvesting and crafting - but no true PvP combat. (You can do minor damage to other players, but you're more likely to receive buffs from random people.)
     
    The biggest problem with Glitch is it's a time suck. Not to say that the game sucks, far from it. But there simply is little limit on how much time you can spend playing. Yes, you have a finite amount of "energy" to use each 4 hour game day performing various actions. However, it is just possible to gain energy by eating, picking up energy coins, meditating, completing quests and achievements and leveling up. Running completely out of energy sends your character to Hell, where you squish grapes to be resurrected. (There is an achievement for visiting Hell 3, 11, 53, 251 and 1009 times.)
     
    About the only thing which requires significant time is learning skills - which starts at minutes and ramps up to hours. But you continue to learn skills even when you're not logged on. It's even possible to pick which skill to learn without entering the game!
     
    One thing I have noticed as I've played over the last few days is the number of quests I am given has dropped. So while I could spend my game time harvesting resources or just exploring, there is less incentive to do so. Thus I'm busy learning skills, as these usually trigger quests.
     
    One point of frustration I've hit is your inventory is limited to 16 items. This can be expanded with bags (adds 9 more spaces for 900c) or big bags (adds 15 more spaces for 1999c). But with the number of tools and other items (including food) which get carried you never seem to have enough free space.
     
    For those who are interested in playing, I recommend also checking out the wiki at glitch-strategy.com.
  8. EricBall

    Dragon Age Legends

    By EricBall,

    When I signed up for Google+ I was happy to see that the games (and their notifications) were segregated from the main feed page. Although I didn't join Facebook, my wife did, and her feed was clogged with games related posts. She spent a lot of time on Facebook playing games until she quit cold turkey. I told myself to avoid the games on Google+, and I managed to do it for a month.
     
    It's all her fault . . . she joined Google+ and started playing Zombie Lane, so I figured I would play too, if just to help out with stuff which requires friends. But I quickly got frustrated as the objectives changed so they couldn't be accomplished in a single day. (e.g. kill two super Zombies, which can only be killed with crafted weapons, which require killing other Zombies and hoping they drop the necessary items)
     
    So I started playing Dragon Age Legends. The main quest is fairly linear - you travel from encounter to encounter (each encounter being either a story point or a battle) which requires energy that automatically replenishes with time. (This is a good thing as it limits how long I can play at a sitting.) Battles are turn based with a party of 1-3 (you plus two characters) facing off against several waves of 1-6 creatures. After each battle you can't use the characters (other than yourself) for several hours. (Again, forcing me to stop playing.) You get additional characters and loot along the way. You also have a castle which you can improve and use to build potions and bomb.
     
    Of course, as a "Free to Play" game, there's lots of ways to spend real money but I haven't needed to yet (and probably won't in any case). But it's weird to see that there's an option to buy 6,000 crowns for $99.90! (Right beside the option to buy 200 crowns for $4.90.)
     
    I've gotten myself up to level 10 (first level cap). The battles are getting tougher so my potion & bomb production is more of a limiting factor than party members or energy. I'm also gold poor (just spent 1,000 on the level cap) and I need 2,400 gold to build my throne room so I can build furnaces to upgrade my production. Winning some battles give a decent amount of gold, but some just give a cheap item.
  9. EricBall
    This weekend while my wife was in Miami and my son was at school or asleep I played far too much Half Life 2. I got the game as part of the Orange Box for the PS3, which I bought to play Portal. But HL2 is an FPS and thus is verbotten in my wife's opinion. But what she doesn't know. . . Based on the walkthrough, I've played through over half of the game (maybe even two thirds). And although I had fun, it wasn't quite as satisfying as the original. I will say that I thought many of the environments were extremely well done. City 17 felt real. You could feel the oppression, depression and collapse. The sheer hopelessness is amazing. Ravenholm was convincing as a zombie town. And the train bridge captured the feeling of climbing hundreds of feet over the river.But there were many other things which I didn't like. The biggest is how linear the game is. You can't get lost, although you may have to search a little to find the next exit. But when I was trying to escape City 17 I quickly realized I simply had to follow the most obvious path and I would be on the right track, which kinda defeated some of the fear & tension.Also high on my list of dislikes is how long the loads take. Maybe it's just the PS3 port, but I found it very annoying when the action stops as it loaded the next section. Since the game is linear, couldn't the next level be loaded in the background half-way through the level? It's also kinda sad when I can predict when a set scene is going to occur.I also found the story worse than HL1 - in spite of it being more complex. Why the G-Man brings you back and where the new Combine aliens came from is never really explained. And maybe Dr. Breen isn't the "bad guy", he's just trying to make the best of a near hopeless situation.Finally, the NPC and enemy AI doesn't seem to act as intelligent as HL1 - i.e. charging mindlessly into overwhelming fire. (Although it's kinda nice when I had the big gun on the car. I'd park the car, spring the trap, then run back to the car.) And although it's initially distressing when "friendly" NPCs get killed, I quickly realized there was no impact. (And if they are dumb enough to attack a gunship with an SMG standing out in the open, then the predictable will happen.)
  10. EricBall
    Since the PS3's security structure has fallen, I'm left to wonder whether it's even possible to create a secure console. Secure in the sense that it prevents piracy. And if I was Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft I'd be talking to fail0verflow to contract them to help design it.
     
    Copy protection basically comes down to making something which can be read (by the console) but not written (by anyone other than the creator). The PS1 used some sectors with zero'd ECC. So the PS1 drive could read the data, ignoring the ECC, but a PC drive would try to correct the "bad sectors" and would add the correct ECC when writing the sectors. Other consoles have used places on the disc which a PC doesn't read or write.
     
    I think this is still the best way to provide a base for copy protection, but with a twist. In addition to storing data (signatures & encryption keys) on the hub area, I'd put a light sensor on the top side of the disc. This could then be used to add an additional bit of information not normally readable. Then go to the Wii extreme of encrypting and signing the entire disc to make it impossible to rip the disc contents for emulation.
     
    I was also thinking about how to support Linux & homebrew without opening the system to piracy. Because if it is possible to run arbitrary code on the system then that code might be a pirated game (or code to assist in pirating a game). But what if the console has two modes - an encrypted mode for running games where everything (data from disc, internal storage, RAM) gets run through hardware encryption / decryption and an "open" mode for running homebrew / Linux where nothing is encrypted. The encryption engine is simply deactivated and can't be reactivated without a powerdown/reset. Games could easily check whether the encryption engine is running and assume they have been pirated if it isn't.
  11. EricBall

    Angry Birds

    By EricBall,

    There's a free Angry Birds beta available via the Chrome App Store. I've played through the first 21 screens and I can't understand why it's so popular.
     
    This isn't to say that I don't enjoy it. I certainly had fun with this physics/puzzle game. But I also found the gameplay somewhat frustrating, and my tolerance and patience for failure is reasonably high. Thus, I imagine that most people would find the game very frustrating (confirmed by my wife), thus I am puzzled by why it's popular.
     
    The problem, IMHO, is the game asks the player to do two tasks:

    Determine the "right" place for the bird to hit to kill the pigs.
    Pull the slingshot back correctly to hit the desired target. (With the additional timing requirements for some of the birds.)

     
    Unlike some other parabolic arc firing games I've played, Angry Birds doesn't give the player any help in determining #2 for the first shot. Yes, you can refine your later shots base on the previous one, but that doesn't help with that first, often critical shot. And that's a problem. Because unlike a game like Worms where a mis-aimed shot typically has no negative impact, with Angry Birds that first shot can often cause the structure to collapse in such a way that it's significantly more difficult, if not impossible, to kill the pigs using the remaining shots.
     
    So, in order to be successful you have to accomplish both #1 and #2 on the first shot with no aids to assist with either. Difficult? Yes. Frustrating? You betcha.
     
    I also can't imagine trying to play the game on an iTouch/iPhone with the level of accuracy required with the slingshot (unless it's really zoomed in compared to the WebGL version).
  13. EricBall

    Portal 2

    By EricBall,

    I think the first game I bought for my PS3 was the Orange Box - basically to get Portal (although I've played a good chunk of Half Life 2 while my wife wasn't around). So while I'm not a major fanboy, the game is definitely one of my favorites.
     
    Anyway, I knew P2 was coming out, had watched some of the videos, but hadn't really thought about getting it until today when ars reminded me that P2 has a co-op mode. Then something clicked - P2 co-op & long weekend. What a better way to spend time with my son?
     
    Except he doesn't like it.
     
    Actually, I think he's frustrated by the controls. He just hasn't spent enough (any?) time playing FPSs, whereas Dad has played a bunch since Wolf3D kicked off the genre. So while I've never mastered the circle-straffe, dual stick move & look is burned into my reflexes. I don't have to think about how to do what I want to do, it just happens.
     
    My son, on the other hand, gets frustrated trying to figure out how to move the controls to accomplish simple tasks. I don't think he's quite figured out the difference between turning and straffing, and he certainly hasn't figured out how to move, turn & look all at the same time. The first person perspective also may be causing him headaches 'cause he's used to playing 2D third person games, with the ability to see more of what's around him. And it's relatively easy to get disoriented in Portal 2, even if you aren't fall-jumping - one junk filled corridor looks like another.
  14. EricBall
    Roughly based on: http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/03/weekend-project-pinhole-panoramic-c.html
     
    The design point is to make a 120 roll film cyclindrical panorama camera. My original idea was to make one with a 90 degree vertical field of view & 135 degree horizontal FoV, with the idea that a full 360 degrees would be covered in 3 shots. But then I got to thinking about adding a zenith shot (which would be easy if the depth of the camera was half the height), so up'd it to 105 degrees vertical FoV.
     
    However, then I read a post which mentioned that the effective F-number of a wide angle pinhole camera falls off at the edges due to the greater distance from the pinhole. D'oh! 1/cos(105/2) = 1.62, which is almost 1.5 f-stops. Thus I decided to go back to just 90 degrees vertical FoV (1 f-stop) and not worry about the zenith.
     
    From a design standpoint, unlike the Make camera, I decided to make the body interior the same height as the spool (65.5mm). The film guide then is pair of 5mm thick 28mm radius semicircles glued to the top and bottom. Roller pins at the front guide the film from the spools around the guides. Tension on the spools holds the film against the guide.
     
    pinhole.zip - updated, with plans for whole camera
     
    The lens is a laser cut pinhole 0.2 mm in diameter (aka 200 micron), in as thin of a material as possible. (Turns out the laser cut pinhole would be $30. So I'll start with making my own in some aluminum foil.
     
    The result is a 56mm x 88mm frame covering the full 180 degrees (well, less than that due to both the guide pins and pinhole material thickness/fringing). Update - should be ~165 degrees.
     
    Assuming 5mm material the camera dimensions should be 120mm x 80mm x 40mm, or 4.7" x 3.2" x 1.6", which seems very, very small. Update: 137.5mm x 45mm x 78mm according to current plans.
     
    ToDos:
    1. Determine possible 5mm construction materials. Done - black on black foam core board, 5mm thick (perfect), and $10 for the sheet.
    2. Get a couple of 120 film spools, find out who sells & develops 120 film. Done - Was tipped off about a local camera show and picked up 3 rolls of color negative for $3 and 5 rolls of color slide (aka "reversal") for $10 (expired, but good enough for what I want to do). I've unrolled one of the rolls so I now have an empty spool.
    3. Work out the miscellaneous hardware - guide pins, spool pins & winders. Update: pencils (dia 7mm) for guide pins, PC screws for spool pins, bent wire for winders.
    4. Pinhole & viewing window. Update: aluminum foil for pinhole, exposed negative for viewing window.
  15. EricBall
    All files available from: http://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/candce/3:2010cv01811/226894/
     
    Well Sony has fired back at the Amended Complaint with two barrels: a Motion to Strike and a Motion to Dismiss. I haven't gone too far into them, but Sony's first point is the five plaintiffs have different complaints and one didn't even install OtherOS! So Sony's point is if the the five plaintiffs are representative of the class, as a whole, then the court can't assume a class really exists. Ouch!
  16. EricBall
    While on a 2 week vacation to watch the Daytona 500 (my wife is the NASCAR fan), I picked up the Chumby powered Insignia Infocast (in spite of none of the Best Buy drones knowing what one was). Now that I have it, I'm wondering what I'm going to use it for.
     
    It certainly will function as an 8" 800x600 digital picture frame, just stick in an SD card. Ideally I'd like to pull stuff from iPhoto or Picassa (since that's where I store photos now). It can also play back videos, although the challenge will be figuring out the right codec/container/bitrate. It also has UPnP and it sees my MythTV server, so I might try transcoding HDTV shows, or stuff from the TiVo.
     
    It also can play MP3s, although I haven't played around with it yet. And I don't know if there's an iTunes interface.
     
    There are also a thousand or so Chumby widgets which should work. Finding ones are worthy to use is a different story. I have set up a Twitter app for my wife. It's okay, but not perfect.
     
    But it's also a mini Linux box. Whether that gives me anything I want I have yet to find out.
  17. EricBall

    Playing GT5

    By EricBall,

    This past weekend my step-brother-in-law gave me GT5 and a steering wheel and I've been playing it every evening. And although I'm not a hardcore racing sim driver (Mario Kart is more my style - foot to the floor) but I am having fun along with some frustration.
     
    I'm currently up to level 8 and my current effort is trying to get around the Nuerburgring in less than 11 minutes. I'm within 10 seconds and that's with a few bounces off the Armco barriers. So I'm confident I'll get there with practice.
     
    The same can't be said for the final International C license challenge which is a 2 lap race on a street course in Rome in an older Ferrari which handles like a go cart - it likes to spin out turning at high speed or turning while braking. So it's very easy to spin out and bump the barriers, which is an immediate fail. (So's hitting or being hit by another car.)
     
    Part of the difficulty is the Intec steering wheel, specifically the pedals. Stepping on the gas, the game shows full throttle when the pedal is less than halfway down. This makes it more difficult to do less than full throttle. GT5 itself doesn't help either as the controller configuration menus don't provide information about what various options do and what can be changed.
     
    A big part of GT5 is acquiring and tuning cars. This is enforced by races which require certain cars. Fortunately I was able to complete (and win) the first few races with Nissan mm-R prize car I got completing the A License. But then I tried the Vitz Race with the Yaris prize car and was promptly passed by the field. No matter how well I drove into and off the corners I'd lose ground on the straightaways. But once I bought race tires, a turbo and a engine management upgrade I again won handily. (Although the upgrades cost more than I won.)
     
    But... the next two races require cars I don't have. So I have to either complete another event to get a prize car which meets the requirements or buy one, assuming one is available to buy from the "Car Dealer". (Fortunately there are lists on the Internet which will assist me.)
     
    I'm just hoping that most of the races are more like the Nuerburgring challenge - achievable with practice; not requiring ultimate skill & tuning to eek out on a perfect run.
  18. EricBall
    Via slashdot Team Twiizers (now known as fail0verflow) has made some significant strides in demolishing the security of the PS3. (By discovering a flawed crypto implementation - allowing the private keys to be recovered.)
     
    It makes me wonder if it is possible to implement a truly unbreakable anti-piracy mechanism.
  19. EricBall
    Cnet published an article discussing that the Xbox 360 has reached its 5th birthday with no successor for it or its competition in sight.
     
    The answer is simple: it's all about the money.
     
    Microsoft and Sony initially sold their consoles at a loss to gain market share. Now they make a profit, so the more they sell now the more profit they make. Microsoft also rushed the Xbox 360 to market, which got them initial share but cost them in reliability and replacement. Microsoft and Sony have also just released significant add-ons for their systems (Kinect & Move) and I'm sure they are watching them closely so they can be integrated into the next generation console.
     
    Sony also has to deal with the uncertain future of the IBM Cell processor. At one point Intel's Larabee was suggested, but that project has also fizzled.
     
    The general economy hasn't helped, both in expected sales (especially for a new, high priced console) and willingness to invest heavily in a future product.
     
    Developers are probably happy to remain on the current platforms. Their tools are mature, although there still is some power to be tapped. A new console would just increase costs while reducing the target market.
     
    Finally, I bet Sony and Microsoft are waiting for 3DTVs to become more common. Both the Xbox 360 and PS3 were design for HDTV and it only makes sense that their successors would be made for 3DTV. (Yes, the PS3 supports 3DTV, it will be interesting to see how much content takes advantage of it.)
     
    However, it might be argued that Nintendo is farther behind technologically so needs to release an HD Wii to maintain market share. But Nintendo is releasing a new console in 2011 - the 3DS. And although it is handheld, the $300 price tag puts it in competition with consoles. Plus, since it has a 3D display, it will allow developers to learn how to make good 3D games.
  20. EricBall
    One side effect of buying a new camera (Panasonic FZ40 to replace a Canon S3) is I've rekindled my interest in panoramic photos. Using Hugin (free software) a series of overlapping photos can be assembled into one giant image. Doing this requires identifying "control points" which either link to photos together (i.e. this white dot on photo 1 is the same as this white dot on photo 2) or identify horizontal, vertical or straight lines. With enough control points, the software can determine the direction the camera was pointing, correct pitch and roll, and even adjust for less than perfect camera lenses or handheld photos.
     
    Some of the photos I want to assemble look out at the ocean horizon. So I want to be able to add control points which identify the horizon as a straight and horizontal line across multiple photos. Thus I want to make those control points as accurate as possible. Right now I'm doing some research into edge/horizon detection, and playing around with some of my own ideas. What I want to be able to do is to build a utility which will load a JPEG and identify the horizon Y coordinates across the entire photo to sub-pixel accuracy.
  21. EricBall

    Piracy is too damn easy

    By EricBall,

    This weekend the family and I got together with the in-laws for a Canadian Thanksgiving dinner. We arrived early and ended up spending the time watching "How to Train Your Dragon". About halfway through, their son comments, "pretty good quality for a download." I'd figured we were watching a DVD instead of a Blu-Ray, even though they had a PS3. But then I realized he wasn't saying this was streaming from Netflix, but it was pirated (via LimeWire, which he was using to download Gladiator).
     
    I have to confess that my past is not lily white when it comes to copyright infringement. However, I have to say that my DVD library is made up of pressed, not burned, media. And I don't have a folder of MP3s shared via BitTorrent. (Heck, I seldom even run BT.) So let's just say I try to set a good example and respect copyright.
     
    But free is a major temptation for people, especially when it is easy and seemingly risk free. So while I don't support extortion-style lawsuits, I have to wonder if there's any way the genie can be put back in the bottle. Technology doesn't help as experience has shown any DRM will be defeated or worked around given enough time. Quality seems irrelevant as people will watch movies recorded with a cellphone.
     
    IMHO The place to attack is on the suppliers - those who make pirated material available for download. And although there might be some value in going after the middlemen, like LimeWire, it may be tougher to make things stick since they can hide behind claims that they don't provide the materials themselves. (Plus, I'm sure someone will come up with a decentralized solution.)
     
    Thinking further, the best people to identify megahosts are ISPs. And many of those ISPs are telecommunications companies selling Internet along side TV. Hmm... I'm thinking there might be a possibility of some enlightened self interest here. The studios tell the telcos it's in their best interest to crack down on piracy. Every pirated movie is a lost PPV sale.
     
    Although just because it makes sense doesn't mean it will happen. Here in Canada there was a huge amount of grey/black market satellite TV (i.e. US satellite TV with or without a subscription). I always wondered why the Canadian cablecos & satcos didn't each toss a million dollars into a legal/lobby/enforcement fund to make having a grey market dish illegal. (They're out in plain view and I bet you could even figure out what satellite they are pointing at.)
  22. EricBall

    Apple ][ versus CoCo

    By EricBall,

    Back in the day my family owned a CoCo (partially because my Mom worked at a Radio Shack computer store at the time, so got a discount), but at school I user Apple ][s (pluses and Es). Unlike the C64 (or the Atari 8 bit computers), neither the CoCo or the A2 has any sound or sprite hardware. Yet the A2 had a huge library of games, and I have to ask myself why.
     
    I think it was the disk drive. Although a disk add-on existed for the CoCo, cassette tapes were still very popular. And, unlike the A2, the CoCo disk drive (since it used standard hardware) wasn't capable of the same levels of copy protection as the A2.
     
    So the A2, with a disk drive, programmers had the advantage of read/write random access copy-protected storage.
  23. EricBall
    My wife has suggested getting my son an iPod Shuffle (or similar) to replace the kiddie cassette player he has. A bid advantage of going with an iPod is my son can therefore get stuff from my wife's iTunes library. However...
     
    Reasons I don't like the current 3rd generation iPod shuffle:
    1. C$70+tax
    2. Controls on the headphones. However, C does think K's iPod headphones are comfy.
    3. It's dang tiny, just looking to get lost.
    4. Requires a special USB cable for charging & sync. (Something else to get lost.)
     
    I like the 1st generation iPod shuffle, and I can get one for C$30+tax. But they are ~5 years old so I'm not sure how good the battery & flash will be. Then again, my batting average for iPods from eBay ain't the greatest and it's about half the cost of a new one anyway.
     
    Going with a non-iPod MP3 player isn't really an option 'cause it couldn't play anything purchased from the iTunes store.
     
    So I'm torn. Buy something cheap even though it will probably die sooner rather than later or buy something more expensive even though it will probably get lost before it dies?
     
    (A second generation shuffle is a C$40 fourth option. It at least works with normal headphones.)
  24. EricBall
    For those of you with PS3s, be aware that the April 1 update disables OtherOS. So after installing the update you will no longer be able to install OtherOS or boot into OtherOS - so no more PS3 Linux. (Of course, the PS3 slim didn't have this ability.) Not upgrading means you will no longer be able to access the Playstation Network.
     
    There has been much discussion on whether this is legal. IANAL, but I suspect it is not and Sony will be forced to either provide compensation (e.g. Playstation Store credits) or re-enable OtherOS.
     
    Personally, I have not installed OtherOS, although I have looked at it. Although I didn't find any compelling reason to install Linux, my main reasons for not installing was mostly PITA and WAF. So although this change doesn't impact me today, it does remove a feature which was of value to me.
     
    Although I don't agree with the decision, I can understand why Sony did it. Linux was being used to break out of the walled garden which Sony had created for OtherOS, creating the possibility OtherOS could be used for various forms of piracy. Removing OtherOS removes this path, making piracy much harder.
     
    However, I'm sure this is only a temporary setback. The ability to run Linux has been put forth as a kind of "pressure release" for the hacker community. Since the PS3 could run Linux, there was little reason to hack the PS3 as one of the primary reasons to hack a console (e.g. Wii, Xbox 360) is to run Linux. There could also be a substantial backlash, causing a larger number of hackers to focus on the PS3.
     
    This action also ignores the large number of legitimate PS3 Linux users who will be forced to make a decision between PS3 Linux and PSN. For the pure HPC users this probably won't have an immediate impact, but home users will probably learn very quickly that they cannot do without PSN.
     
    From a broader perspective, this shows how little control a consumer has over anything which is dependent on the network for functionality.
  25. EricBall
    One of the knocks against the Propeller is it has no code protection, unlike PICs and other microcontrollers with onboard EEPROMs. And although the protection may be less than perfect, I can understand many companies are not willing to have their IP in an easily accessible state.
     
    IMHO the way to remedy the situation is to include a small amount of onboard OTP storage for an encryption key and integrate a decryption routine into the bootloader. But for that to work someone (i.e. me) needs to code up the crypto routines. So I've been learning all about AES and working out how to code the routines in Propeller Assembly.
     
    I've coded up a first attempt at the encryption routine and it's surprisingly compact - less than 1K. I've done some cycle counting and it's over 14K cycles per 128 bit block! At 80MHz that works out to 88K per second, so that's not too bad as far as load time is concerned, adding less than a half a second for 32K. The biggest time sync is the combined ShiftRows + SubBytes routine which has to do a table lookup for each byte and reorder the bytes in the four 32 bit columns at just under 1K cycles for each round, and there are 10 rounds per block.
     
    And although crypto sounds big and scary, it's actually not that complex. The toughest part is keeping the byte order straight when reading the spec! (Like the 4 bytes which make up the 32 bit column are shown as [a0 a1 a2 a3], where a0 is the LSB!) AES breaks down into four or so main subroutines (SubByte which does a table lookup, ShiftRows which mixes bytes between words, MixColumns which does a matrix multiply on each column, and a routine to do a polynomial multiply by 2). The parts which operate on the 32 bit columns are easy on the Propeller, but the byte operations are painful!
     
    My next step is to wrap the code in something I can use to view the results then start going through the sample data and make sure everything works.
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