Author: Leon

Categories
Politics

FCC trolls Dish Network

It sure looks like the FCC played a dirty trick on Dish by giving approval to provide wireless service on the ground but stipulating conditions that make it impractical. I bet somebody got some nice stuff from a lobbyist.

Dish Network LTE plan: FCC chairman gives support | BGR

Good news for everyone who wants to see more competition in the United States wireless industry: Federal Communications Commission chairman Julius Genachowski is throwing his weight behind Dish Network’s (DISH) proposal to use a 40MHz chunk of satellite spectrum on the 2GHz band for terrestrial LTE-Advanced services.

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Categories
News

Minecraft on a Raspberry Pi

Mojang will release a version of Minecraft Pocket Edition for the Raspberry Pi, a tiny cheap computer sold by a charity that encourages young people to get interested in hacking computer hardware. My two sons are completely addicted to Minecraft and play on Windows and Ubuntu. Minecraft PE is not exactly as featureful as the ordinary version, so they probably wouldn’t care about getting a Pi and playing there.

I’ve noticed lots of innovation in tiny PCs coming out of China that run either Android or Ubuntu. In addition to tablets and laptops, there are the gamepad and HDMI stick form factors. For not much more than the Pi, you could get an HDMI stick like this: Mini MK802 Android 4.0 Google TV Box HD IPTV Player PC Allwinner A10 1G DDR3. I’m sure there’s some fun to be had putting the Pi into a box and hacking it, but it seems like one of these HDMI sticks would actually be more fun on the software side.

Minecraft is coming to Raspberry Pi!

Have you ever thought about learning to program? Where would you begin? How much would it cost? What would you need to get things moving?

The Raspberry Pi is a credit card-sized computer that’s a great starting point. It’s cheap, capable, and approachable for newbie programmers. It’s also extremely fun to play around with, no matter your experience with code. Plug it into a TV or monitor, attach a keyboard, and begin.

Soon you’ll be able to play and program with Minecraft on one of the snazzy little devices. Aron and Daniel have dedicated time to porting a version of Minecraft: Pocket Edition that comes with a revised feature set and support for multiple programming languages. We’re calling it Minecraft: Pi Edition, and it will be completely free to download.

Categories
Psychology Science

Dogs do not naturally distinguish objects by shape

Humans tend to classify objects by shape first and then use other aspects to further specify them and turn them into abstract concepts. Dogs start with size and then rely on texture. You and I see a marble and a basketball as two examples of balls. A dog would consider the marble to be more like a small, smooth coin. It would be hilarious to have a philosophical conversation with a dog with human-level consciousness.

Fetch! First clear evidence that dogs do not naturally distinguish objects by shape

Researchers have provided the first empirical evidence that the way in which dogs relate words to objects is fundamentally different to humans.

Categories
Freedom

Germany outlawing Darknets

Increasingly, people are using darknets to hide their communication from prying eyes. It looks like Germany is moving to try to punish those people. Note that in Germany, someone who unwittingly passes on a copyrighted file can be held responsible. That’s not true in the U.S.

“Anonymous” File-Sharing Darknet Ruled Illegal by German Court | TorrentFreak

A court in Hamburg, Germany, has granted an injunction against a user of the anonymous and encrypted file-sharing network RetroShare . RetroShare users exchange data through encrypted transfers and the network setup ensures that the true sender of the file is always obfuscated. The court, however, has now ruled that RetroShare users who act as an exit node are liable for the encrypted traffic that’s sent by others.

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Categories
Programming

PHP library for database version control

DBV is a library for PHP that helps manage changes to your database. Various open source projects do this in different ways. You can go the simple route of manually keeping a series of SQL files that must be executed in order. One big downside is needing to remember the conventions and following them. Plus, you must keep track of which patches have been applied.

You can automate updates and tie them to release numbers. This is how Expression Engine does it. You just need to manage your release numbers.

Another way to do it is to write a PHP script that detects the database state and executes ALTER statements as necessary. I made a solution like that from scratch before.

It looks like DBV is more sophisticated than any of these solutions.

dbv.php: Database version control, made easy!

Make sure you and your team always have the same schema structure for tables, views, procedures, etc.

Create changeset scripts and queries, commit them to your source control system, and share them with your team.

New changeset scripts are highlighted, so you know your database is in need of an update.

Something wrong with a changeset script? Fix it directly in the application interface.

Not using MySQL, or any other of the bundled DBMS adapters? Writing your own is as easy as pie!