Wikileaks eyes becoming 'The Shadow Broker'

For those who have had the pleasure of playing Mass Effect the above reference won't be lost on you. For those of you starved of such an experience the Shadow Broker is a game character regarded as politically annoying but at the same time incredibly useful (at least enough so not to start an interstellar man hunt when you can just pay him for dirt on your enemies). Things are a bit different here as we can very easily look up who works for Wikileaks and you don't even know if the Shadow Broker from the game is one person or hundreds. Those differences aside their goal seems to have fallen relatively in line with one another.


Barla Von, Agent of the Shadow Broker.

For those not familure with http://wikileaks.org/ it's a site where people can post well... 'leaks'. These could be anything from secret government documents (the currently contentious items) to documents showing a chain of corruption in a prominent Swiss bank's Cayman Islands branch.

Basically, Wikileaks has decided the auction off 'first rights' to a pile of emails from Hugo Chavez's aide. This is not to say they won't be published on the site, they would just like someone to read them first and actually do something with them. The logic being, if someone is willing to pay for it they are going to invest the time to actually write a story about the emails.

Critics of this approach however observe that most of our 'venerable' news stations have a strict policy of not paying informants. This is done in the fear that paying them will encourage them to game the system by making things up, not an entirely crazy way of thinking. This of course isn't the case in the tabloid world but I can't imagine that's the target audience of this particular auction as it would hardly prove a net gain for wikileaks on the credibility end.

One area that peoples seem to have ignored entirely is the possible interest groups like say... the NSA would have in such information. I mean come on, how could use an an intellegence opperative not want access to the email of the Presidents Aide in a hostile foreign country?

Source articles:
http://blog.wired.com/27bstroke6/2008/08/wikileaks-aucti.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080828-wikileaks-to-auction-hugo-chavez-aides-e-mail-trove.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080303-wikileaks-restraining-order-a-failure-judge-says.html
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080514-mormons-scientologists-face-uphill-battle-against-wikileaks.html

The Blue Pill:
Anyone afraid that their company or personal secrets may wind up on wikileaks shouldn't be too terribly concerned as in all likelyness it's not going to be around for much longer. They've already admitted that this is an experiment to help fix their ailing funds (and hopefully their fairly terrible servers which have been down for the entirety of writing this post). The fact that they are even considering this (especially considering the fact that the comments on the above sections seem to reflect an opinion that this is a betrayal of the sites basic principals) indicates that this type of experiment is an attempt to stay afloat instead of getting a functional economic model up and running.

The Red Pill:
Despite it's criticisms and the fact that it hasn't broken any particularly ground breaking revelations so far it provides an alternative way of approaching information that's invaluable to experimenting with the new medium the internet has presented to us. However it shouldn't be preserved just for being novel so the most certainly need to find a workable business model if they wish to continue on the way they have been going. Turning into an information broker may not be the best way to engeander the trust and faith of the general public, however useful a service it would be to world governments and news organizations.

Cool Robots of the... now.

Recently I wound up watching the 'Science of Star Wars' show on HD theater. This particular program showcased robotics, some of which I thought I'd share because they are awesome ( cool enough to stimulate anybodies 'me want' response). It was also presented in a much more glib manner than the episode of Eureka I just watched, which was lets face it, just depressing. I mean come on, killing Stark on his wedding day? wtf.

But onto the awesome.

First, lets go with the robotic Boba Fett. Well that's what he looks like anyway. It's a new robot being designed for the international space station and NASA know as Robonaut.
















See?

Anyway, this handy machine is being designed as a robotic extension for setting up work areas and doing emergency repairs that's forever present on the outside of the space station. The reasoning being this thing can be booted up and ready to use in a matter of minutes where as a dude in a space suit is stuck inside for a few hours getting prepped. He's basically a human upper torso linked to a tele-presence rig similar to what a doctor would use to perform remote surgery. The demonstrations thus far have indicated it will be able to retrieve tools to setup remote work areas indicating it will have some way to traverse the exterior of the station. One could also surmise from the extensive number of pictures of it mounted on what looks like a mars rover that it could land a job as general / emergency assistant on future Moon and Mars missions. In these environments a wheeled base would be far more useful than having it mounted inside a box, allowing for local and remote field assistance.

The second one I'd like to talk about is the Personal Satellite Assistant. Or personal orbiting death star.




























Or my new favorite:



Found At: http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/geekend/?p=590
Yes, that is in fact a steam punk death star.

This little orbiting sphere of doom, is actually meant to be a helpful tool for astronauts inside the ship and includes equipment to let it be propelled around the cabin. It's totally reliant on the micro gravity conditions present in space and is similar in concept to the Gilliam bots from the anime 'Outlaw Star' (pictured below). It's being designed as a remote monitor slave device as that NASA central command can take over (for instance to monitor a situation directly) as well as to full fill assistant rolls for the astronauts it will serve along side. Some of the stated goal behaviors is to be able to ask it to retrieve temperature readings from devices in other segments of the ship and return them to it's associated astronaut. Thou one wonders why that isn't already available on a wireless pda the astronaut can just look at.



The Blue Pill:
While the Robonaut may look almost human there's no worry that it will ever rise up against it's human oppressors. The device lacks even a rudimentary intelligence so far as I've seen indicated and appears to have been exclusively designed for use with tele-presence technology instead of automated emergency handling. The PSA on the other hand appears to be designed from the ground up to have some form of intelligent automation systems built into it. However the fact that it needs a zero-G environment to operate, and it's relatively small size relegates this device to the realm of giving astronauts a headache when it bumps into them at even it's highest speeds.

The Red Pill:
These robotics coupled with the giant grappler style arm built by the Canadian Space Agency installed a few years ago rounds out a solid compliment of scientific, service and emergency tasks to keep the International Space Station on the forefront of a number of robotics endeavors. What's more these new tools being added to the space station push forward a number of other fields we can expect to see blossoming in the coming years. Including (but not just these) the realm of actual functional digital assistants both robotic and virtual, human computer interaction and interfacing, virtual reality and tele-presence abilities and techniques. I don't see the personal Satellite Assistants replacing astronauts entirely but it will let NASA and other international space agencies put more 'feet' in space (virtually at least) and give them a very 'Descent' style virtual eye into the environment.

The Lost Feature Set: Local Multiplayer and Local Co-Op

I've been browsing new (and older) games to purchase for the 360 recently and I've stumbled on a trend that bothers me on a number of levels. A large number of Xbox titles are eschewing local multi-player for reasons unexplained. You'd this the advent of HDTV's and the massive amount of screen space that comes with them would allow for more local multi-player not less but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Some examples:

Too Human, it comes out in a week or so. It's will feature Single-Player, Online Co-Op and Online Multiplayer.

Sid Meir's Civilization Revolution, this came out in June, while local multi-player would have been awkward or impractical this game is begging for a local co-op game utilizing the alliance system to establish a permanent alliance between the two players. Alternatively hot seat style play has been done in vs. games before and worked or they could have implemented a simultaneous turn so players are occupied performing tasks for their own civilization and will be distracted from the work their enemy is doing.

Lost Planet, ok this is an oldie but the point is still valid. The multi-player component is built out but relies entirely on the internet, despite the fact that it could be just as easily played Golden Eye style with four players on the same screen (and possibly some bots?)

Chromehounds, why didn't this have a local co-op or vs. mode? It had a neet looking world multiplayer but nothing you could do locally other than the horrid 'campaign' mode.

Mass Effect, first may I say, this game is amasing. Second, why the hell didn't this game have a jump in jump out co-op mode? I don't care if the co-op mode is similar to playing Tails in the old Sonic and Tails game, it would have been more than worth the effort to add the feature.

Ok, fine, that last one is a pipe dream. And these probably aren't the greatest examples but that doesn't remove the perception that the gaming industry is trying to get us to all buy these things sit at home and talk to each other thru headsets instead of actually getting to hang out with your friends and play games with them. It's feels like a grand deviation from when video games were something you could do with your friend or friends, and I'm not talking about party games. Rockband, Guitar Hero and Boom Blox aren't the targets of this article, instead the old style co-op games, Mario Bros, Sonic and Tales, Double Dragon and the Ninja Turtles games come to mind.

The Blue Pill:
As the gaming community ages the advent of online co-op and multi-player is a must, you can't very well justify going to your friends house for 8 hours of gaming once you hit 26+. At least not without a lot of effort to justify it to the significant other, your sub conscious and your ToDo list. This being the case, being able to wrack up and hour or two of online play at night is a convenient solution and one that works relatively well barring connection blackouts and scheduled server downtime. All things considered even if you have to pay to play online the fees are reasonable and many have no fees at all.

The Red Pill:
Just because the average age of a gamer is going up, that doesn't mean we don't still have ridiculous numbers of college students playing video games that wouldn't mind being able to use 2 of those fancy remotes they've bought at the same time. Especially considering most of the systems support 4 or more controllers. The extra remotes used to be a tool used to draw in a new angle on the way the game is played but now that extra angle is relying totally on the internet, a trend that probably isn't an accident. To play games on the internet both players have to own their own copy of the game, increasing revenue for the game publisher ;in the case of the 360 you need to pay for online pay access which certainly isn't hurting Microsoft's pocketbook.

Another thing this throws a wrench into a sharing a system, if the game supports local multi-player siblings can share a single system and TV which is cheaper on the parents. However with online only multi-player the family now has to field and extra machine, game and TV for each player that would like to play.

ps. yes I broke the one paragraph / pill thing but I'm not well versed enough in the grammar laws to make that all look correct as a single paragraph.

A Gift for Oppression

This is targeted at the gifted writer Orson Scott Card, and this little diddy.

First, let me get this out of the way, Enders Game is a Fantastic book.

That being said, sadly his gift for writing stories involving oppression seems to have bled into his philosophy on life. He is actually arguing that we should start a revolution to stop the marriage of gay people. I'm not gay, but I have a thing for anti-oppression, it runs part and parcel with being an atheist. The idea that someone else can tell you how to think is a horrifying idea, and legislating it is a good way to cause nothing but infighting. The might of a government is it's ability to give everyone a voice, telling people they aren't people because of who they sleep with isn't a far stretch from telling people that have no faith in someone's god makes them less human.

The Blue Pill:
Luckily O.S.C.'s status as a sci-fi writer is happily marginalized by a majority of the public. His way of thinking is likely to go just about the same way. This should be considered good by most of us (even me, thou I really do like his books).

The Red Pill:
Propositions like this are horribly dangerous, calling the public to violence over who marries who is patently upsurd. It's the modern day equivalent of calling for inquisitions and witch hunts because you don't agree with a small group. What's more it's no more than a transparent attempt to marginalize a group smaller than yourself in an attempt to garner a political edge. The worst part of this proposition is that it plays into reconstructionist dogma, a group even O.S.C. would probably think twice about jumping into bed with (some quick background information on the movement), and one that would do some fantastic damage to this country and planet given the opportunity.

Wiring Design Rules of Engagement

First to set the tone.
Bad:




Good:


These are just a few of the networking images floating around on the internet at the moment. As you can see there is a stark difference between both the types of bad (arguably most situations aren't as bad as those above) and the good example I have provided. However getting from the bad images to the good image isn't as hard as you might imagine it is if you do it right. There's a price to doing it right thou, and that's down time.

There's some rules to follow to get it all right the first time and keep it manageable for those times when you do have to change something (thou the idea here really is that you don't change the wires once they are installed).

For those not starting from scratch(ie preforming a redo), you should probably start here. Everyone else should probobly start at step 5.

1. Identify all the devices you need to connect
2. Map out exactly how each device has to be connected
3. After you've identified how things are to be connected, figure out a layout for the devices that is physically appropriate for the tasks at hand. This layout should also consider the minimization of the overall distances of wires between devices. This will do a few things for you, including saving money, simplifying the actual wiring and making wire traces much simpler. For the green hearts, shorter wires will also mean lower overall environmental impact.
4. Repeat steps 1-3. I'm not kidding.
5. Calculate the required distances to wire your devices together based on how you would like to organize your cables. If you look at the good example above, some of the devices could be wired up with a 3 inch wire, however due to the way they've elected to organize a 3 or 4 foot cable was required. This isn't necessarily bad since it helps with handling clutter and the overall flow. Remember to give yourself a little wiggle room so that you can handle unforeseen events, using standardized lengths will make ordering the cables much easier (custom lengths are really expensive compared to mass manufactured cables).
   
6. Visit a site that sells wiring and order everything on the list above. I recommend Monoprice. They've treated me well each time I've ordered from them, and beating their prices is pretty hard especially as the number of wires you have to order grows in magnitude.
   
7. (This is of course only applicable for people who have wires to actually remove)Remove the wires and place them in bins based on function (remember that 'down-time' issue I mentioned earlier?). Recycle and re purpose these wires (unless your pulling something like... infiniban, at which point just cry yourself to sleep because whoever designed the setup initially screwed you).
   

Ok, so how do you get all this stuff you have wired up in a way that's pleasing to the eye, flows well and keeps you sane?

You use cable organization tools and layering.

First lets discuss layering. This is more important if your doing a rack installation that say... trimming up the setup on your desk. However it can still be useful especially if your building a tech station for fixing computers.

Layering is basically taking the cables most likely to change or fail and placing a higher order value on them. Basically if a cable is more likely to change, either due to failure or upgrades it should be put in latter in the wiring layout. I generally use the following order as a rule of thumb based on my own experiences, if yours differ use those instead. Note: the list is order from least likely to break to most likely to break (as that's the priority I use).

1. Power Cables
2. Firewire Cables (does anyone even use these things anymore?)
3. Audio Cables (including speaker wires)
   
4. USB Cables (a trick here is to use a USB hub that sits closer to your devices so only a single wire has to be run to the back of your system) and other keyboard / mouse cables.
   
5. Monitor Cables
6. Network Cables (these buggers break constantly...)

Again, that's my priority order, and it's probably missing wires used for a variety of specific tasks (cables used if you say, are setting up a an audio processing console). I could have included a 'misc' listing but that would be misleading since I don't actually have a priority for those cable types. It's also important to note that some of these categories can be broken into sub categories, for instance networking cables could be split into 'trunk' and 'node' cabling, which would make a huge difference in how your wire up your system (if you make the assumption that trunk cables are more reliable or need to be shorter runs for instance).

Cable organization tools:
For those with an unlimited budget you may want to just take a quick tour of http://cableorganizer.com/ as they will have everything you could ever possibly need but your going to pay a premium for it.

For the rest of us, I recommend heading to Lowes to pick up some of these velcro ties, among other things that will make your life significantly easier for about 1/100th the price.

Depending on what your actually constructing or wiring up there's a few other things you might want to consider picking up that can be found in the electrical section of the store. These include wire channels, plastic tubing, double sided foam tape based wire mounts and zip ties.

Now then, the actual rewiring (or wiring) of your devices from this point forward is a bit task specific. If you've got a rack like the one pictured above, you'll have rails you can use to attach those handy velcro ties to then great, if you don't those double sided foam tape mounting strips will come in handy (assuming you feel like gluing things to the surface of whatever it is your using). To turn the foam tape pieces into handy tie off locations place them on the point you'd like to install a tie wrap at and use the included zip tie equal to the direction the wires should travel. After that wrap one of the velcro ties thru this zip tie and viola you've got a velcro mounting point that can hold a few lbs before you have to worry about it. After that, it's a simple matter of actually doing the wiring. I recommend following the priority list above as much as possible, finish up a step. Clean it up and make sure it's as good and clean as you can make it then move onto the next one, all excess wire should be bundled up near but not actually at one of the two ends of the wire. Make sure the loops are long enough to actually occupy the cable your working with and don't hesitate to use plenty of velcro straps to keep things the way you want them (it's $4.79 for 50, you can afford to go a little overboard). Don't forget to leave a little give even in systems that don't move. In systems that do move, give alot of give, you may want the items coming into the back of the system to have up to 3 ft of give just to make it easier to work on in the future, but this does lead to the usage of more cable length and a bit more clutter that you'll have to deal with somehow.

With a little practice you can get a method down pat making the process painless in the future.

The Blue Pill:
These are just guidelines, and anal retentive ones at that. For most projects simply making sure you occupy the slack in your cables and making sure all your cables reach where they are supposed to go will suffice to make it look neat. This goes for most home DIY types as well as most office neat freaks. So for you, take as little or as much as you'd like away from this as it's probobly overkill for what you want to do.


The Red Pill:
These are by no means a comprehensive guideline that you could base say... a wiring spec around, but they will get the job done for anyone that doesn't have say... 1" constraints or less placed upon them (I wouldn't build a space shuttle on these tips for instance). That being said there's a few things people who wish to take it up a notch can do to improve this. First pick up a label maker that can print cable labels. Then determine a coding system so you can always tell which cable is which based on the information from affore mentioned cable maker. I recommend a coding system that indicates the cables ID number and a few characters indicating it's end point types, this will let you build a thurough map of all the cables in your system for diagramming, change tracking and system additions.

Got any suggestions or comments, leave it at the bottom.