Josef “Jeff” Sipek

So, today for a reason unknown to me, I decided to visit the US Department of Homeland Security. I was greeted by a spew of data. From the first two bytes I recognized the fileformat to be a bitmap image. I couldn’t help myself, but to extract the data and save it in a separate file. No matter what I did, I couldn’t extract more information from the file than this (I converted the bitmap to a PNG for easier viewing in web browsers):

I am not certain what happened, but regarless it just seems too enjoyable to not write about. :) So, just let your imagination loose and enjoy. (If they fixed their site already, here’s a link to a screenshot)

Jeff Garzik just posted “State of the Union — Wireless” to the linux-kernel mailing list. It all ends with:

So… there it is. We suck. There’s hope. No Luke Skywalker in sight. I hope we can avoid being slaves to fashion, by merging a rewrite, but that way be the way to go.

I found a great link, where someone built a Portable Rotary Cellular Phone. I have to say, I’d love to have one — just walk into a room, put the phone down onto the table, and just let it sit…until someone calls. :)

I installed Apache 2 on my desktop, the config is very nicely split up (this is supposedly Debian maintainer’s work - thanks). I had an issue with some PHP scripts, and therefore just stopped Apache 2 and went back to 1.3. I’m going to take a stab at it soon.

Also, I noticed that there is Apache 2.1 (alpha) link on Apache’s website. It is supposed to have some nice features. We’ll see.

So, here I was - resting after new years (PF 2006) when I decided to watch some Star Trek. Since I have a considerable backlog of episodes to watch I resumed where I left of last week… Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 2 Episode 14. In this episode, Kirk, et. al. goes down to a planet that seems to have had a history similar to that of Earth. The major difference was, the Roman Empire did not fall. So, the away team finds themselves on a planet with Roman values but mid 20th century technology. Well, at approximately 17 minutes into the episode, there are a bunch of shots of Roman buildings. At 17:27 in, there is this one:

When I saw that, I went: “Whoa! Is that….?” I couldn’t help but resist pausing and googling to make sure my suspicion was correct. And it turns out it was.

What exactly did I think when I saw the frame above? “Whoa! Is that Building 10 at MIT?” Yep. I knew the name or rather number of the building. (I blame the fact that I applied there as a freshman.) Here’s a photo I found on google that is from not too long ago:

And here is a link to the original of the above image. In the larger version you can clearly see the “MASSACHVSETTS INSTITVT OF TECHNOLOGY” and the year “MCMXVI.”

I think the reasons the producers chose the MIT shot were:

• Not everyone knows what it looks like, compared to say many of the Roman-like architecture buildings in Washington, DC.
• (Possibly) Star Trek does tend to be watched by more technologically oriented people. And it adds the episode a nice touch to show one of the major technology universities

Overall, it was a nice episode.

So, newyears consisted of working on a simple HTTP proxy-like script (in Python) until 23:56 when I got called downstairs to watch the NYC ball drop thing on TV. The ball dropped, just like every year, and there was much rejoicing. 0:01 I said that I’ll be upstairs coding some more. :-)

Except those 5 minutes, a typical midnight.

I have found an interesting bit of information…It would seem, that Intel owns the trademark BunnyPeople. When I learned that, I couldn’t help but do some searching to find out what or who BunnyPeople are. Here’s what I found:

BunnyPeople are these stuffed dolls (or are they action figures? hmm…) of the highly trained people that make processors. Apparently, these "toys" were part of Intel’s marketing capaign in 1997 promoting the Pentium II.

According to some random site (mirror), the dolls are approx. 8 in (203.2 mm) or 13 in (330.2 mm) tall.

Unfortunatelly, I can’t give you a link to the actual trademark page (since the system uses a cookie-based search sessions), so I have to resort to giving you a link to a screenshot of the page.

Rating: 5 stars (out of 5)

Warning: The following text is not guaranteed to be spoiler free. Reader’s discretion advised.

Just like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Monty Python’s Life of Brian is truly amazing. The British/Python-ian humour is pleasantly refreshing after watching several American movies.

Basic idea of the movie is: Brian is born next door to Jesus, and is mistaken for the messiah several times, has a number of run ins with the Roman occupation forces. And this is how it all ends (Brian is not in the frame, but he’s there with them):

So, today I learned that I should watch more British TV/movies. :)

Just some interesting bug reports I have come across… ALSA #1671 Gentoo #74072 Gentoo #104437

Before you ask…the ALSA bugtracker has a rather prominent link “Guest login (view only) is also available.” - click on that; there’s no need to register.

Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)

Warning: The following text is not guaranteed to be spoiler free. Reader’s discretion advised.

Well, Kill Bill: Vol. 1 is much like Quentin Tarantino’s other film Pulp Fiction, that is, the movie is told non-sequentially. It is not as interleaved as Pulp Fiction, where you have about 4 stories told at the same time. Basic story is, a wedding is interrupted by 5 assassins, they kill everyone, or so they think. Some time later, the former bride wakes up from a coma, gets very aggravated, and starts killing the assassins. By the movies end, she gets two. My guess is, she’ll get the rest in Volume 2.

The one thing that made me give this movie 3.5 stars is the silliness of the fight scenes. It made me look at the movie as a comedy, more than a YAAF™. Without this humorous view, interesting camera effects and non-sequentiality, this would be just a sub-par action flick.