Sep 13 2007

No Sleep – Average Faces And Gigantic Firewalls

Category: Aware Or Conspiracy Nut...,In The Media,Internet Connections — ChrisM @ 7:13 am

OK it is 6.55am over here, and I am still up, hoping to catch another WorldWide Wednesday opportunity over at PayPerPost, as I managed to last week (see the Argus post). If it does not appear soon, I shall give up and grab some sleep. The official release time for these opps is Wednesday midday until Thursday midday, EST. Here in Astana, Kazakhstan, we are 10 hours ahead of that time (no daylight saving time adjustments over here), so if I’m lucky, I may not miss the releases whilst asleep.
In the mean time, here are a couple of articles I found interesting…

Although I will not need to get a new passport for another 6 years (and therefore, unless a new law is passed, not have to have biometric information added to it with a RID chip (thats a whole other ‘Aware Or Conspiracy Nut‘ post for another day…) facial recognition is already in use at the passport control areas I usually use when flying home. Because of this, I need to remove my glasses (and also not smile, I recently discovered) to ensure that the cameras in the official’s booths can easily measure the distance between my eyes, nose, mouth size etc. and compare it to the passport photo. Although this software aids the fight against the use of false ID, it is not perfect. This BBC article explains how a researcher has discovered that by averaging different photos of a human face into one composite, both computers and humans make less mistakes comparing real life faces to the photo. This should eventually lead to a higher accuracy rate…
Lastly, we have another article, this time on how the Chinese Great Firewall is not so great when under strain. The article goes into some detail about how the Chinese authorities actually manage the flow of information on subjects they would rather their citizens did not have unfettered access to. However, I would really like to hear from anyone who has some first hand knowledge in this area (are you reading this Gavin?), as I was previously under the impression that the so called Great Firewall of China was infact NOT centrally administered or even based, and that the blocking of sites and information was the responsibility of the different ISPs that serve different areas of China. From previous blog posts I have read elsewhere, a resident of one area in China may find they are able to access sites that someone thousands of kilometres away can not. Anyone able to enlighten me?

[sidenote]
I have just noticed this blog is #1 on Google for the term Aware Conspiracy Nut 🙂

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Sep 13 2007

Hamster Night Time Crash

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 6:07 am

As you may already know, I’m a big fan of the BBC TV Motoring show Top Gear (see here for a few previous posts). Although BBC World does eventually broadcast a cut down version of the show via our satellite receiver, it does not feature the (mainly British) guests, and often cuts other funny sections. Luckily most of the shows are downloadable from the net, and so before we had ADSL, ChrisD would normally grab them for me.
Anyway, Richard Hammond (subject of a few posts last year when he had a 300mph+ crash in a jet ‘car’) has had another accident, though nothing like as serious this time. The show was recording the three presenters taking part in an endurance race over at Silverstone, when the car (which Richard was driving at the time) was crashed into by another vehicle. By the sound of the BBC news article, some media outlets are overplaying the seriousness of the crash, as the presenter seems fine, and even the car itself was repairable quite quickly.

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Sep 12 2007

Google Earth Software Updated

Category: In The Media,Personal — ChrisM @ 4:34 am

As you may remember, I have been using Google Earth to help plan out some of the upcoming Amsterdam trip – there is no point in deciding to visit four museums in one day, if they are all miles from each other, for example. Anyway, thanks to a kind forum member over at www.channels.nl, I was informed of an update Google have made. Apart from a number of background tweaks, if you now press Ctrl+Alt+A, you can slip into a basic flight simulation mode, and take off from a few different airports around the world. The ability to easily ‘fly’ around areas certainly brings a new perspective to looking at out planet, though without an analogue controller of some description, you may well find it difficult to be very accurate with your headings. I’ve yet to try my steering wheel & pedals combo…
On a similar note, the BBC have published an article on fresh satellite data being used in conjunction with Google Earth in an attempt to find the missing Steve Fossett. If you don’t know who he is, stick his name in as a search term at your favourite search engine – his achievements are pretty impressive. Anyway, people are now looking for a 30 by 20 pixel blob on maps around the area his plane could have gone down, though the American military has thumbed their noses at the idea, scoffing at the idea that civilian satellite imagery is good enough to detect such a small presence.

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Aug 30 2007

Russian Copyright Obligations Clarified

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 12:03 am

A court in Moscow has confirmed that the head of the company that runs allofMP3.com is NOT breaking any Russian laws. Prosecutors originally bought a case against him for selling MP3s without (mainly Western) record companies’ permission, nor paying them. Russian music labels are not thought to have kicked up a fuss, as they have mostly signed up to a scheme to receive some royalties for each download. Check the BBC article for further information. It would basically appear that Russia has a different approach to intellectual properties, and if Western companies do not want to sign up to schemes that undercut their retail outlets (and so be seen to approve of AllofMP3.com) Russian authorities do not care.
Over here in Kazakhstan, although software is now a little more limited (it is now rarer to see pirated MS Windows or Office products on display for example), you can still easily pick up copies of Albums, MP3 compilations of a wide range of artists, and games for most CD/DVD based gaming systems, including PCs. It certainly saves a lot of money for the average Kazakh consumer, who otherwise could not afford to pay for the original real McCoy, especially at Western prices. The pirated copies are mostly produced in Russia, and other than being sold in CD cases, rather than larger sized cardboard boxes, are normally pretty indistinguishable from the retail versions in Britain. Manuals are often included as a PDF on the disc, and the case inserts are normally above average colour copies of the originals, though the back is often re-designed to include the contact details and logos of the Russian pirates/company involved.

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Aug 28 2007

Severn Trent Responds To Criticism

Category: In The Media,Weather — ChrisM @ 4:05 am

Check the IGotLucky page linked to at the top for a few links to posts on the recent flooding my home country (and in fact home county) had. The water was cut off for a while, and even when turned on, was not suitable for washing in or drinking, even if boiled. The problem was that a water treatment plant was flooded, and as flood waters are not at all clean, this meant serious repairs were needed.
Anyway, the BBC has an article detailing some of the criticism levelled at Severn Trent Water, and their response to it. Basically, a lack of communication was a major issue residents felt, and the response to the emergency did not seem at well planned out. Hopefully the company now has better contingency plans, should flooding occur again.

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Aug 25 2007

Out Of Body Experiences Explained?

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 12:24 am

Researchers believe they have been able to induce an Out of Body Experience in volunteers who took part in their experiments. Both in Sweden, and Britain, virtual reality googles, a camera, and a simple pen were used to create an OBE in people with no mental health issues, or drugs (such as Ketamine) involved.
The investigation required the volunteers to wear the VR goggles, they then had an image of themselves displayed. When a researcher stroked the person’s real life back with a pen, they could feel the sensation as normal. However, when the same was done virtually, that is to say only an image of a pen stroking their back was used, with no physical contact, the volunteers still felt the sensation. The experiment went one step further, by deliberately placing the virtual image of the volunteer in a different section of the room, compared to where they were situated in real life. When asked to move away, and then back to their original position, volunteers often took the place that would have been used if the ‘false’ virtual body had existed in reality.
In case that didn’t make enough sense, go check the BBC article 🙂

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Aug 23 2007

Mobiles Banned In Israeli Cabinet Meetings

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 9:23 am

Just read a BBC article detailing how Ehud Olmert has told all ministers they must hand in mobile phones and other communication devices before attending cabinet meetings. They will of course have them returned after the meeting. Interesting that the problems with leaks to the press have become so bad that this step was necessary. I’ll be interested to read what other measures he will be taking to curb leaks of sensitive information.
The last place I worked at in Britain (EDS at RAF Innsworth) had sensitive areas, where phones had to be turned off, but this was rarely enforced TBH. They also seemed to employ signal blocking equipment in some areas, though that could have just been the cellular networks poor coverage 😉

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Aug 19 2007

Pure Personality Politics

Category: In The Media,Kazakhstan — ChrisM @ 11:04 pm

Now the voting process has been completed, I feel a little more comfortable linking to a story the BBC ran on Friday. For those too tired to click on it, Natalia Antelava describes how she sees Kazakhstan’s president (Nursultan Nazarbayev) as a man in complete control of a stable country. The nation’s oil reserves have secured Kazakhstan’s income, where other countries in this region are still struggling. Whilst the middle class find their lifestyle improving, they is little urgency felt to changes the political landscape into a more democratized one. When people look across the border to the last (late) president of Turkmenistan, they see how much worse things could be; this country’s president, or his advisers, have been wise enough to see that excessive hero worship and cult status can run the risk of severely back firing. In terms of confidence in a nation, following the Soviet collapse in the 90s, this country is stable and although some people may wonder what a different president would be like after all these years, many fear that a new president, and his associated cronies would only lead to a new power base being established, with more resources being creamed off, and so an even longer wait for a fairer system.

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Aug 18 2007

BBC Prime With No EPG

Category: Personal — ChrisM @ 12:08 am

I mentioned the other night that Ira and I often watch some British drama and comedy series on the BBC Prime satellite channel. Unfortunately, they do not broadcast any EPG data, at least on the HotBird satellite anyway. This means that program information is not instantly available. Although a Teletext signal is broadcast, it is a bit cumbersome in comparison. However, I recently signed up over at BBCPrime.com, and now get e-mailed each day with a program guide, with the times adjusted for where I live (GMT+6). I now know that if we want to watch EastEnders, we need to get up at (or in my case, stay up until) 6.30am! Not quite big enough fans for that, so we sometimes manage to catch the omnibus editions at the weekend.
Anyway, I’m writing this post in the hope that if other BBC Prime viewers read it, they may find the site useful, there are a couple of other features there, where you can indicate which genre most interests you, and have your schedule personalised.

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Aug 17 2007

Ion Cooling

Category: In The Media — ChrisM @ 6:33 pm

Although the title (Tiny Wind Engines Cool Computers) of the BBC article is a little mis-leading, the contents certainly made for interesting reading. The basic premise is that by making charged ions flow over a chip’s surface area, no air molecules become stuck to the silicon, thereby making cooling by a fan more efficient. From what I can tell in the article, this only applies to chips that are air cooled, without heat sinks. I feel that the journalist was either constrained by the length of the article requested, or that full research was not carried out before publishing.
Whether this technology could be applied to the surface of a heat sink, and if so, whether similar improvements in efficiency could be expected was not made clear.
Just to clarify, the article refers to fans blowing air over a chip’s surface, though often the hottest chips have a heat sink, with some thermal paste between them, and then a fan stuck on top of all that. Another point not raised is whether a stream of charged ions would adversely effect the transistors operation, and whether this would cause any sort of electro magnetic interference… I don’t know if ions rapidly moving create an EM field, but if they do, this could cause engineers headaches.

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