So recently I went to a lot of trouble to hook up the MythTV system I built a couple years ago, only to realize two weeks later that I don’t use it. I don’t really watch TV much at all anymore. However, there are a few YouTube channels I enjoy. More specifically, I tend to prefer the bias of Russia Today and AlJazeera English versus the horse shit that tends to come out of American media. There are a few other YouTube channels that are worth watching.

So, the problem I ran into after a week or so of watching these YouTube channels is that YouTube’s interface completely sucks. After checking around for other options for interfaces, Miro is what I ended up settling on. Miro is basically a video podcast client, but it supports BitTorrent and YouTube channels. I remember checking it out when it was called Democracy Player, but I wasn’t really impressed for reasons I can no longer remember.

What this means for you is that you can always have interesting, free, on-demand content available on your computer for when you’re ready to watch. Channels I subscribe to can basically be divided into four categories: News, Science & Technology, Libertarianism, and Humor. When I open Miro each day, I click on “New” and click Play. I am then shown a mix of videos that I am almost always interested in watching. I can skip, delete, keep each video, or just let it play through and expire ones I’ve seen after five days. The result is by far more stimulating than the content I get from my cable company.

Just FYI for those of you looking for something better than traditional cable television.

Well, basically. This lecture by Drew Endy is essentially about reverse-engineering DNA sequences and the future of nanotechnology. Great stuff.

So I discovered Mozilla Prism for the first time a few days ago. It’s nothing incredibly special. It basically allows you to open web apps in their own windows, independent of web browsers. This becomes a little cooler when you combine it with Google Gears, which gives many of these applications an offline capability.

Sadly, Google Gears is not available for 64-bit Linux, but you can still get it here.

Now you can treat GMail, or any other Google App, like a stand-alone application. It’s the best of all worlds.

It seems that it’s now possible to upload straight FLV files via the web-based Google Video upload page. What’s more, the FLV files go live instantly, instead of waiting in queue to be encoded. I have only tested this with FLV1. The Desktop Google Video Uploader still does not seem to accept FLV files, but it still may be possible to upload an FLV file with an AVI extension, if Google’s system ignores the extension once it’s uploaded. I’m testing that now.

Anyway, FYI, for anyone who cares about the quality of the contend they’re uploading.

UPDATE: It is now also possible to upload huge FLV files via the Google Desktop Uploader, so long as you rename your file’s extension to .avi.

1) If you’re on Windows, download this and skip to Step 3. Mac, Linux, and Unix users download the source code for connect.c
2) Compile it. On most systems, the command would be: gcc connect.c -o connect
3) Add this to your ssh command: -o ProxyCommand=”connect -S localhost:9050 %h %p”
For example, I could use this command to connect to Silence is Defeat over Tor:
ssh -o ProxyCommand=”connect -S localhost:9050 %h %p” silenceisdefeat.com

And that’s it… Pretty easy. More info can be found here.

And you thought Facebook would attract stalkers. Imagine a service that shows people every move you make on Facebook, MySpace, Digg, YouTube, Amazon, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Friendster, Last.fm, and over a dozen other services at the same time but in one easy-to-stalk place. Spokeo, a recently launched Web 2.0 service that bills itself as a “hyper-aggregator”, does just that.

No need to log into thirty different websites to track your ex-boyfriend – Spokeo will do it for you! Start by giving it the username and password to your GMail account (not at all implying this is a good idea), and Spokeo will automatically show you all of your friends and all of your friends’ accounts on other services. Think your ex-boyfriend might have an account on sites that you don’t know about? Problem solved. Need more Stalk Data on your friends? Just give it more login credentials for the other websites you have accounts on… it’ll do the work.

Of course, when Spokeo’s servers are compromised, the attacker will have ALL of your login credentials for just about every account you have.
Spokeo says they don’t store your passwords, but since they don’t use SSL, they can’t stop others from sniffing the login credentials you give them.

From Slashdot:

The Department of Homeland Security’s Real ID program has a real challenge on its hands from California. DHS had said it will only grant extensions from the Real ID rules taking effect on May 11 to states that apply by March 31 and promise to implement Real ID by 2010. California requested an extension but would not make the latter promise. DHS buckled and said, in effect, “Good enough.” Perhaps they realized that trying to slap giant California around is qualitatively different than doing the same to New Hampshire.

Click here for the full article.

Don’t get suckered into paying $20, $30, or even $70 per month for nationwide wireless internet. If you’re a T-Mobile customer, you can do it with their $6 T-zones plan just by making a minor change on your laptop. Here’s how:

Table of Contents

1. Instructions for Mac OS X, Linux, or *BSD
2. Instructions for Windows
3. How it Works

Instructions for Mac OS X, Linux, or *BSD

1. Add T-Zones to your calling plan, if you haven’t already.
2. Sign up for a free shell account at SilenceisDefeat.org (instant activation is a one-time fee of $1)
3. Setup tethering, if you haven’t already.
4. From a terminal, issue the following command:
   ssh -p 143 -D localhost:1080 username@ssh.silenceisdefeat.com
   Of course, you need to replace “username” with the username you picked in Step 2. The password to use was emailed to you when you completed Step 2. If there are any problems, check the support channel.
5. You can change your default password by using the psswd command once you’ve logged in. You now have a local SOCKS5 proxy with no restrictions. Just configure your browser to use it. For Firefox, (Click Edit > Preference > Advanced > Network > Settings > Manual proxy configuration; At SOCKS Host put in localhost and for the port, use 1080.)

Enjoy the freedom!

Instructions for Windows

1. Add T-Zones to your calling plan, if you haven’t already.
2. Sign up for a free shell account at SilenceisDefeat.org (instant activation is a one-time fee of $1)
3. Setup tethering, if you haven’t already.
4. Download and run PuTTY
5. For hostname, enter ssh.silenceisdefeat.com. For Port, enter 143, like this:
   
6. On the left site, in the Category box, click over to Connection > SSH > Tunnels. Click the second check box, enter 1080 for the Source Port, click the Dynamic radio button, and click Add. Make sure it looks like this before you click Add:
   
7. Now go back to the Session screen (at the very top in the Category box), under Saved Sessions, type “Silence is Defeat” without quotes, and click Save. This will allow you to re-use these settings in the future without having to enter them again.
8. Now click “Open” to start the session. You’ll be prompted for a password, which should have been emailed to you when you completed Step 2. If there are any problems, check the support channel.
9. You can change your default password by using the psswd command once you’ve logged in.
   You now have a local SOCKS5 proxy with no restrictions! Just configure
   your browser to use it. For Firefox, (Click Tools > Options >
   Advanced > Network > Settings > Manual proxy configuration; At
   SOCKS Host put in localhost and for the port, use 1080.)

Enjoy the freedom!

How it Works

The T-Zones APN, wap.voicestream.com, has a proxy available at 216.155.165.50 on port 8080 that used to allow most HTTP traffic to any server, but as of late it blocks normal websites. However, the APN still allows unrestricted traffic on ports 25, 110, 143, 465, 587, 993, 995, and 8080 for various reasons. ssh.silenceisdefeat.com accepts SSH connections on ports 80, 143, 465, 443, and 587. So, we’re just connecting to Silence is Defeat on port 143 and then tunneling all of the traffic from our local SOCKS proxy to Silence is Defeat, where there are no traffic restrictions. This can be used for the web, IRC, instant messaging, and just about anything else.

If you like this trick, please consider donating to Silence is Defeat via paypal at sdpaus@gmail.com, as they are footing the bill for the bandwidth required to do this. Also, check out their chat room. Enjoy!

So back in June, Apple came out with their iPhone.  I’ve always liked how it looks, but given that there are so many features missing from it, I decided to keep my unlocked Sony Ericsson W810i.  However, as of late, I’ve been given the opportunity to acquire a free iPhone.  So, for the purpose of deciding which one to use, I’m going to outline the advantages and disadvantages of the $400 iPhone as compared to my two-year-old W810i.

Disadvantages:

• It’s much bigger
• No MMS (picture messaging)
• No third-party app support and no Java – you’re stuck with the software that came with it
• No voice recording
• No video recording
• No cut-and-paste
• Can’t assign personal music tones
• No AIM/iChat
• No voice tags for voice dialing
• Semi-difficult to unlock
• No memory card slot

Advantages:

• It looks pretty
• Better browser
• Wi-Fi (but since there’s no support for third-party applications, there’s no way to run Skype or VoIP)

As far as the iPhone’s other claims to fame — MP3/video player, Google Maps, a working web browser, and YouTube — that stuff existed in other phones long before the iPhone came out.  Frankly, I think the reason it sold so well is that it looks really cool and Americans were largely unaware of what cell phones could already do.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not criticizing Apple for coming out with it, I just wish they incorporated some basic cell phone features.

I’ll give the iPhone a shot, but it’s hard to imagine going without some of these standard features.

Although I’m not a very eloquent writer, I’ve tried to stress the importance of voting machines running on Open Source software, instead of Closed Source software.

Please understand: There is no point in having elections when the voting machine source code is a secret (aka. Closed-Source).  No point whatsoever.

How much faith would you have in a system where everyone passed their ballots under the door of a dark closet where one man is trusted to announce the results at the end?

Would that make sense to you?  Would you trust that man to be honest?  Would you still bother voting?

Of course not.

However, this is exactly what closed-source voting machines are.  There are a handful of guys who write the code and then keep it a secret.  That code is then used to tabulate the results, and then we just trust whatever it says.

Doesn’t anyone realize how bat-shit-insane that is?!?

Think I’m nuts?  Watch this video:

Want to watch someone actually rig a random voting machine? Watch the last half of Hacking Democracy:
Here’s a short clip about a different Diebold model, although it’s not documented as well as the video above: