A leaf directory in a whole set of files that map from character set byte value to Unicode code point. This one is a set of Microsoft character set byte mappings, but there are other vendors in there too.
So this is another Stuxnet by Israel/US?
The analysis reinforces theories that researchers from Kaspersky Lab, CrySyS Lab, and Symantec published almost two weeks ago. Namely, Flame could only have been developed with the backing of a wealthy nation-state. … “It’s not a garden-variety collision attack, or just an implementation of previous MD5 collisions papers—which would be difficult enough,” Matthew Green, a professor specializing in cryptography in the computer science department at Johns Hopkins University, told Ars. “There were mathematicians doing new science to make Flame work.”
[via motherjones]:
Sticking to an exercise routine takes dedication, and many fitness junkies swear that a running companion can be a huge help. That’s why researchers have developed “Joggobot,” a quad-rotor helicopter drone designed to motivate joggers by flying in front of them.
The aerial robot uses its camera to spot a colorful pattern on a T-shirt worn by the jogger, and flies at a safe distance ahead. The runner can control Joggobot using a smartphone: In “companion mode,” the drone simply maintains the jogger’s pace; in “coach mode,” it pushes its human trainee a little faster.
Don’t worry, there’s a video
Science!
Maybe it should chase you instead?
Waxy roundup of DMCA takedown process stupidity.
“So the Scripps TV broadcasts are indexed by YouTube, and the Content ID robots do the rest. And because Content ID disputes are judged by the copyright holder, complaints are routinely ignored or denied.”
The conversation surrounding how to liberate HBO from its cable partners and create the entertainment utopia viewers have long desired has been fascinating.
The resulting analyses of the numbers has pretty much shown that the amount people are willing to pay is not nearly enough to…
Use of my old Hotmail account has really snuck up on me as I end up caring more and more about all of the services with which it is associated. The last straw is Windows 8 login, but previous straws include Xbox, Zune, SkyDrive, and my Windows 7 Phone. I like the features and sync'ing associated with the Windows Live ID, but I don't like my old, spam filled, hotmail email address on the Live ID account.
A coworker told me about creating a Live ID from a custom domain, which sounded like just the ticket for me. Following the instructions above I was able to create a new deletethis.net Live ID but the next step of actually using this new Live ID was much more difficult. My first hope was there would be some way to link my new and old Live IDs so as to make them interchangeable. As it turns out there is a way to link Live IDs but all that does is make it easy to switch between accounts on Live Mail, SkyDrive and some other webpages.
Instead one must change over each service or start over depending on the service:
BoingBoing reposts this great Cyberpunk parody photo from 12 years ago, and Motherboard has a What happened to cyberpunk article.
Neat demo of Visvalingam’s line simplification algorithm in JavaScript applied to a map of the US.
To simplify geometry to suit the displayed resolution, various line simplification algorithms exist. While Douglas–Peucker is the most well-known, Visvalingam’s algorithm may be more effective and has a remarkably intuitive explanation: it progressively removes points with the least-perceptible change.
A great JS API to add Clippy or other agents to your website! Make them talk, dance, gesture, etc
Star Trek’s hypospray apparently already existed and has been patented since 1960.
param([Parameter(Mandatory = $true)] [string] $Path);
$FullPathOriginal = (gp "HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment").Path;
if (!($FullPathOriginal.split(";") | ?{ $_ -like $Path })) {
sp "HKLM:\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Environment" -name Path -value ($FullPathOriginal + ";" +
$Path);
}Fixed in Windows 8 is intra-line tab completion - you can try it out on the Windows 8 Consumer Preview now. If you open a command prompt, type a command, then move your cursor back into a token in the middle of the command and tab complete, the tab completion works on that whitespace delimited token and doesn't erase all text following the cursor. Like it does in pre Windows 8. And annoys the hell out of me. Yay!
oldie but goodie, go to google translate and paste this in, turn it to GERMAN and hit the listen button.
pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk pv zk bschk pv zk pv bschk zk bschk pv bschk bschk pv kkkkkkkkkk bschk bschk bschk
now turn it to JAPANESE, hit listen…LOL
Web apps really make obvious the lack of URI APIs in the DOM or JavaScript. This blog post goes over using DOM API side effects to resolve relative URIs and parse URIs. An additonal benefit of this mechanism is that you avoid security issues caused by mismatched behavior between the browser’s URI parsing and your app’s URI parsing.
I'm done playing Fez. The style is atmospheric retro nastalgia and on the surface the gameplay is standard 2D platformer with one interesting Flatland style game mechanic but dig deeper to find Myst style puzzles. Despite the following I thoroughly enjoyed the game and would recommend it to anyone intrigued by the previous. Five eighths through the game I ran into one of the game's infamous Fez save game breaking issues, but I enjoyed the game enough that I started over before any patches were released and had no further issues.
While playing the game I created some tools to help keep track of my Fez notes (spoilers) including a Pixelated Image Creator that makes it easy to generate data URIs for large, black and white pixelated images, and (spoilers) a Fez Transliteration Tool to help me translate the in-game writing system.
Answers those questions like “When will the Sun boil away the Earth’s oceans?” and “When will the Sun burn out?”, but brings up new questions like which supercontinent configuration will win? I’m hoping for Pangea Ultima as it has the best name.
Some rights reserved