Category: Techie

Anything of particular interest to the techie crowd.

Free techie books

I can’t even reemember where I got this link, but check out all the free techie books at TechToolBlog.  Here’s a sampling of the books:

  • Assembly Language Tutorial
  • A Tutorial on Pointers and Arrays in C
  • Win32 Programming for x86 Assembly Language Programmers
  • A Beginners C++ Book
  • Understanding the Linux Virtual Memory Manager
  • Advanced Bash Scripting Guide
  • Loving Lisp – the Savy Programmer’s Secret Weapon
  • Non-Programmers Tutorial for Python

Tons more are listed at the site.  There are 195 books on the site on all kinds of topics.

[tags]Techie books, Free books[/tags]

Build your own phase-change cooling system

(via Hack-a-Day)

Big geek site-maintainer editor alert here, folks – I love computer fiddling. I have all the parts for a water-cooling set-up at home (no time to actually assemble, install and test it – but I have the parts if the time ever shows up). All kinds of high-end cooling get-ups tickle my fancy. I have half a dozen different kinds of CPU coolers and nearly as many video card coolers just waiting to be put to some use in some system in my house.  In my rare spare time, I sand the bases of my coolers with fine grain sandpaper just so they mount and cool better.  I spend extra money to buy high-end cooling pastes.  I do case modding.  I paint cases.  I build computers for friends because I enjoy it so much that any excuse to build works for me. So naturally, with all that geekiness in my system, I have to point out this write-up on how to build your own phase-change cooling system. Now if I can just find the time and money to buy the parts so I can put it all together.

[tags]DIY cooling, CPU cooling[/tags]

Now you can Blue Screen a Mac

bsodimac.jpgSince every techie site in the web-o-verse is covering this, I’ll just pick one and let you dig for more info from there. With the announcement of Apple’s Boot Camp, you can now easily load Windows XP on your X86 Mac.  Some sites are reporting the the Vista install and Debian install processes start up, but those same people have been a little gun-shy trying the full install. No word, therefore, on whether you can actually get other operating systems running, but it looks promising.

[tags]Mac, Blue Screen, XP on Mac X86[/tags]

Scientists lose some neutrinos, delight in right

Livescience has an article on a recent test shot of a beam of neutrinos from Fermi-lab (in Batavia, IL) to a particle detector in Soudan, MN. As a result of some of the neutrinos not making it, the scientists have apparently verified a theory which indicates neutrinos have mass. This sets up further studies into the nature of neutrinos.

There are three types of neutrinos, each associated with a different charged particle: the electron neutrino, the muon and the tau. The Fermi scientists think the vanishing act they witnessed was a result of the neutrinos changing from one form to another, a phenomenon called “neutrino oscillation.”

The test results provide further evidence that neutrinos must have mass, the scientists say. If the masses of all three types were zero, neutrino oscillation would not occur.

[tags]Fermi-lab, neutrinos[/tags]

Tracking down an unknown driver

The always informative Mark Russinovich (you may have heard of him – he pretty much broke the Sony DRM malware story) has a brief but detailed article on how he tracked down an unknown driver on his system and why he noticed it in the first place.

The other day I used Process Explorer to examine the drivers loaded on a home system to see if I’d picked up any Sony or Starforce-like digital rights management (DRM) device drivers. The DLL view of the System process, which reports the currently loaded drivers and kernel-mode modules (such as the Hardware Abstraction Layer – HAL), listed mostly Microsoft operating system drivers and drivers associated with the DVD burning software I have installed, but one entry, Asctrm.sys caught my attention because its company information is “Windows (R) 2000 DDK provider”

[tags]Driver tracking, DRM[/tags]

Surprisingly, 42 may indeed be the answer

(via Slashdot)

Very interesting article over at the Seed magazine web site.  It’s a great discussion of number theory, placement of primes, the relationship between heavy elements’ energy patterns and prime number locations, the Riemann Hypothesis.

There is an important sequence of numbers called “the moments of the Riemann zeta function.” Although we know abstractly how to define it, mathematicians have had great difficulty explicitly calculating the numbers in the sequence. We have known since the 1920s that the first two numbers are 1 and 2, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that mathematicians conjectured that the third number in the sequence may be 42—a figure greatly significant to those well-versed in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

It would also prove to be significant in confirming the connection between primes and quantum physics. Using the connection, Keating and Snaith not only explained why the answer to life, the universe and the third moment of the Riemann zeta function should be 42, but also provided a formula to predict all the numbers in the sequence. Prior to this breakthrough, the evidence for a connection between quantum physics and the primes was based solely on interesting statistical comparisons. But mathematicians are very suspicious of statistics. We like things to be exact. Keating and Snaith had used physics to make a very precise prediction that left no room for the power of statistics to see patterns where there are none.

But I have to admit, I’m not certain I believe that solving the Riemann Hypothesis will allow one to crack Internet encryption (bad reference to TV show involving math).

[tags]42, H^2G^2, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Riemann Hypothesis, 42[/tags]

MAKE blog link dump

As I’ve done before, I’ve gotten behind on reading and posting all kinds of interesting content out there. In an effort to catch up, I’m making a large link-dump style posting instead of putting each of these in their own article. The following links/stories are all from recent MAKEzine blog posts.

  • Run an NES emulator on your XBox 360 via MCE.Xexter in the Maxconsole forums figured out how to run a NES emulator on an Xbox 360 using a Media Center, no sound – but the games run at full speed, nice! – “Found a way to add a menu for the roms list so you will have to edit the nes.htm and change to whatever Nes rom you want to play. I’ve included a Public Domain rom for testing but have verified Zelda1-2, Excitebike, and TecmoBowl and all worked.”
  • Learn HOW-TO use an oscilliscope“An oscilloscope is easily the most useful instrument available for testing circuits because it allows you to see the signals at different points in the circuit. The best way of investigating an electronic system is to monitor signals at the input and output of each system block, checking that each block is operating as expected and is correctly linked to the next. With a little practice, you will be able to find and correct faults quickly and accurately.”
  • Stop-motion video via LEGO bricksCalazon Enterprises made a fun stop motion LEGO movie, with an unhappy ending for a frog. When will the frog abuse craze end?
  • LEGO soccer arenaAs stated on the MAKE blog: “What you’re looking at isn’t an arena filled with thousands of people, it’s an insanely detailed arena, made out of LEGO.”lego-arena2.jpg

    lego-arena1.jpg

  • Another LEGO PCThis is not unique. But at the same time, LEGO PCs are not very common. Being in to case mods, I always enjoy seeing these.

    legopc-1.jpg

  • How hearing aids are made
  • Make your own projector
  • Build your own generator“The key to this design is that it will require a horizontal shaft motor, which can be found on old drum style lawnmowers, roto-tillers, and lawn edgers. The most common motor size you will find on the used market will be a 3 or 3.5 horse power model. Larger motors are harder to find because most of them are snapped up for building go-carts or mini bikes. “
  • Build a plexiglass PC casePlexi-PC1.jpg

[tags]MAKEzine, MAKE blog, DIY projects[/tags]

Build your own laser listening device

(via Hack-a-day)

Have you ever wanted to build your own laser listening device so you could act like one of those cool S000per sekrit! spies?  Well, here’s your guide.  The audio isn’t really that good, but it’s a start.  Get one built, and improve it.  Also, the original guide used to put together this laser device can be found at this DynDNS site.

[tags]Laser listening, eavesdropping[/tags]

Better lighting for better gaming

(via Joystiq)

A British company, Geomerics, has published some information on their work with geometric algebra which apparently will lead to better lighting, and therefore improved visual realism in gaming.  Certainly of no interest to most of the world’s population, but a big w00t announcement for many gamers.  Gameplay is what matters, sure, but improved visuals are almost always welcome, too.

Currently, lighting in games is a toss-up between three elements: in real life, light often changes position (e.g. as the sun moves across the sky); objects cast shadows, which are often quite subtle; and depending on your viewpoint, you can sometimes see light sources reflected in other objects. The usual method is to pre-calculate the shadows in a scene and paint them on the ground, but this means the light source must stay fixed. Thanks to next-gen computing power, spherical harmonic lighting can be used to generate soft, lifelike shadows from moving light sources, but without any of the shiny surface effects that complete the picture and add realism.

[tags]Gaming, Geomerics, Geometric Algebra[/tags]

Watch ‘Perfect Disasters’ on Discovery channel

(via LiveScience)

I don’t know why natural disasters are so fascinating.  I guess it’s probably the immense power behind things such as tsunamis, hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, tornadoes, and more.  Whatever it is, I think it will make for some good TV.  Be sure to watch the new ‘Perfect Disasters’ series on the Discovery Channel, starting this Sunday evening.

The series examines what might happen if some of Nature’s most destructive storms were unleashed on some of the world’s most populous cities.

Each catastrophe is presented as a mini-movie, complete with actors and fictional storylines, but unlike similar Hollywood creations, each episode is peppered with expert scientific commentary and slick computer animations explaining the science behind the storms.

The series’ tagline is “It may not happen tomorrow, but it is scientific prediction.”

Each episode takes a natural disaster and imagines what might happen if it were ratcheted up a notch to become the “perfect storm” of its type. Tornadoes become mega-tornadoes that reduce entire cities to rubble and solar storms are so powerful they can generate global blackouts that last for years.

[tags]Perfect Disaster, Discovery Channel, science predictions[/tags]

Booting XP on a Mac – game over

(via Hack-a-day)

It appears that XP on a Mac has been confirmed, and “narf2006” and “blanka” have won the prize money.  A link to the download is available on that site.  I especially like the Hack-a-day response to this, though:

With this new development the only reason not to run XP on a Mac is that XP sucks

And I agree with that even though I run XP.  It’s just the best way available for me to game, still.  I need to go back to Linux, but gaming is easier on XP, and with 2 kids and a sucky job, getting into my games most easily is a high priority.

[tags]XP on Mac[/tags]