hojo

Google New Search Feature!

2007-02-15T05:47:00.000-08:00

Ever interested in how many employees work at Google or where it's located ? Why don't you ask Google!

DIGG Removes top users list. Tribute to the Top Users!

2007-02-02T00:32:00.000-08:00

Digg.com announced that they'd remove the Top Digger list, because of possible abuse.
I feel sorry for all those top contributors who have spent hours and hours of their time to submit the best stories and articles to Digg. Respect to all Diggers, who managed to top the list. I've listed the top 150 below, so their recognition lasts till eternity.

	USERNAME	POPULAR	SUBMITTED	POPULAR RATIO	DUGG	COMMENTS	PROFILE VIEWS
1	digitalgopher	1002	2071	0,48	11938	667	98,165
2	CLIFFosakaJAPAN	762	6108	0,12	8508	876	60,036
3	p9s50W5k4GUD2c6	752	1484	0,51	14409	1127	54,848
4	aaaz	724	1834	0,39	19174	66	31,787
5	gwjc	673	2005	0,34	23816	1402	42,931
6	supernova17	617	1314	0,47	35639	1370	57,077
7	MrBabyMan	598	3408	0,18	12529	1017	29,875
8	bonlebon	560	5092	0,11	17342	2026	62,046
9	chrisek	558	1612	0,35	27608	70	24,129
10	BloodJunkie	525	1720	0,31	15991	2422	40,06
11	webtech	525	982	0,53	39487	267	38,548
12	Aidenag	500	1297	0,39	17496	1779	24,707
13	dirtyfratboy	496	1255	0,4	13782	1046	59,062
14	koregaonpark	468	2664	0,18	14127	896	30,936
15	snipehack	434	1648	0,26	5719	1032	49,804
16	zaibatsu	359	746	0,48	32854	609	22,147
17	msaleem	353	1534	0,23	12394	1370	32,468
18	webtickle	350	478	0,73	36409	76	24,294
19	3monkeys	346	1060	0,33	11429	325	23,654
20	wayjer	342	1000	0,34	15954	902	38,888
21	curtissthompson	331	1049	0,32	19694	827	35,578
22	capn_caveman	326	925	0,35	9287	989	30,369
23	parislemon	323	670	0,48	8203	145	23,053
24	tommytrc	317	1126	0,28	2257	794	36,259
25	Gregd	306	1217	0,25	3437	1207	39,215
26	johndi	296	714	0,41	24764	1349	25,415
27	TheAttacks	280	1480	0,19	12793	860	32,018
28	fatmike	264	3093	0,09	7868	45	14,086
29	IvanB	238	645	0,37	17990	1265	17,7
30	charbarred	225	739	0,3	13341	588	18,59
31	zepequeno	215	726	0,3	15753	71	27,848
32	OBKenobi	212	952	0,22	6874	5321	22,258
33	kevinrose	209	209	1	7323	330	544,077
34	1gunit	206	958	0,22	1658	260	23,055
35	tomboy501	206	458	0,45	10432	693	15,065
36	DigiDave	193	585	0,33	8099	274	16,835
37	schestowitz	189	1213	0,16	9389	2913	19,389
38	JibberJabber	188	524	0,36	5457	111	20,464
39	cambrown99	179	1057	0,17	5009	971	15,803
40	hemphill81	176	389	0,45	12438	161	17,625
41	mklopez	174	1811	0,1	4355	185	13,909
42	giantAppleCore	166	762	0,22	7390	232	12,503
43	Alexius	165	2107	0,08	6778	84	13,722
44	tysonhy	164	2152	0,08	11374	361	28,344
45	ndm007	149	766	0,19	5738	1004	28,337
46	drum_bum	147	382	0,38	19510	212	19,359
47	Ostermayer	146	297	0,49	2732	199	28,044
48	elebrio	142	354	0,4	12179	876	11,217
49	fudgebrown	139	899	0,15	2666	730	24,545
50	iFelix	133	837	0,16	10131	340	15,253
51	sicc	120	981	0,12	7576	518	5,551
52	sahaskatta	116	196	0,59	3647	748	31,251
53	Brajeshwar	114	814	0,14	5056	131	11,01
54	Geekforlife	108	1227	0,09	2901	189	26,6
55	savingadvice	104	288	0,36	1213	79	6,177
56	attila	103	311	0,33	5936	576	12,994
57	ncaa76	97	700	0,14	2154	273	22,877
58	UCBearcats	97	848	0,11	6936	95	8,223
59	starexplorer	92	989	0,09	2045	128	12,705
60	srobbin	92	314	0,29	4524	67	6,023
61	scottwills	90	392	0,23	880	59	19,083
62	slowspin	90	802	0,11	1042	464	18,981
63	MrCalifornia	88	695	0,13	4067	324	18,803
64	chad78	87	258	0,34	11089	526	14,762
65	digger_twit	86	832	0,1	1448	632	16,43
66	motang	86	1167	0,07	6332	1318	10,16
67	mynickel	82	818	0,1	1831	230	18,553
68	deviceguru	81	456	0,18	1066	28	11,161
69	thedove	79	160	0,49	3901	236	12,316
70	radicaldementia	79	663	0,12	3977	263	8,233
71	jrepin	78	839	0,09	5910	193	10,699
72	Tiabin	78	306	0,25	2217	682	6,131
73	jobeats	77	598	0,13	1988	351	12,906
74	EAMUS1CATULI	75	1475	0,05	10790	286	10,45
75	jefflundberg	72	256	0,28	1720	220	14,124
76	seanthebond	71	516	0,14	4825	559	10,158
77	skored	69	561	0,12	4329	193	2,106
78	bluesaze	68	200	0,34	3388	70	6,92
79	Aggressor	67	154	0,44	5332	49	5,563
80	titlesaysitall	66	366	0,18	1491	2536	13,291
81	BoneyB	66	159	0,42	5375	62	6,811
82	DiggityDugged	65	427	0,15	1567	303	6,877
83	NJShadow	63	679	0,09	2566	165	8,994
84	danhuard	62	107	0,58	1419	150	23,195
85	dtang	62	114	0,54	734	84	16,621
86	runbmd	62	426	0,15	1564	109	7,267
87	rodtrent	62	4106	0,02	18834	212	6,914
88	Avijit	59	258	0,23	3326	11	15,003
89	jlegum	59	131	0,45	743	11	4,754
90	andru	58	252	0,23	773	61	16,569
91	ZaNkY	58	370	0,16	5330	531	9,241
92	BigKitty	56	941	0,06	7327	1675	8,417
93	ozguralaz	56	462	0,12	809	174	7,148
94	antdude	55	948	0,06	22850	1866	13,338
95	iSlayer	55	450	0,12	6644	203	8,673
96	stuntdubl	55	189	0,29	1989	33	6,693
97	jasnmb	55	257	0,21	2023	267	4,754
98	scoreboard27	55	326	0,17	5797	30	4,557
99	TheWalkingDude	54	342	0,16	9757	523	18,5
100	frgmstr	54	67	0,81	364	123	12,29
101	bcassner	54	327	0,17	1229	23	11,876
102	hausmasta	53	93	0,57	640	10	9,228
103	ryland2	53	258	0,21	2773	253	5,592
104	cuoops	52	688	0,08	1506	377	10,123
105	lonelycanuck	49	934	0,05	6303	424	12,176
106	Bleek-II	48	245	0,2	2009	340	17,79
107	pitviper	48	105	0,46	419	2	3,768
108	GR3G	47	239	0,2	1008	62	17,944
109	doodirock2	47	122	0,39	9162	179	7,22
110	G4techTV	45	137	0,33	9926	60	25,988
111	Crest444	45	88	0,51	885	39	5,341
112	felchdonkey	44	572	0,08	2515	2708	12,211
113	mynamefat	44	375	0,12	9716	49	2,608
114	celeb	43	296	0,15	3701	811	22,672
115	nippy	43	378	0,11	7907	18	8,425
116	Carlsb3rg	43	587	0,07	1298	100	6,925
117	Allsortgroup	42	462	0,09	11490	103	5,573
118	WomunOfColour	42	248	0,17	3376	194	5,09
119	JimMessenger	41	236	0,17	3430	188	2,644
120	DVRDude	40	224	0,18	710	334	10,732
121	semtex	40	133	0,3	5512	55	9,263
122	catullus	39	317	0,12	2799	1575	16,447
123	longofest	39	256	0,15	1121	645	11,996
124	RexHavok	39	242	0,16	399	42	8,527
125	diggmeplease	38	638	0,06	637	187	10,634
126	nymphetamine	37	466	0,08	7280	3191	20,544
127	kilgarenone	37	181	0,2	6028	12	18,305
128	williamw	37	185	0,2	3898	141	7,957
129	chieffy	37	56	0,66	567	102	7,705
130	Tatter	37	209	0,18	382	11	7,356
131	alex.will	37	165	0,22	4938	568	6,393
132	hevnsnt	36	110	0,33	1554	126	15,775
133	PrometheuZ	36	245	0,15	1104	1096	10,836
134	neiltc13	36	215	0,17	1223	1051	10,799
135	jervana	36	193	0,19	857	224	8,934
136	rmccs0x	36	128	0,28	615	182	8,908
137	akaidiot	36	374	0,1	556	35	7,616
138	illegalchuck	36	201	0,18	1494	233	6,433
139	inboxnews	36	919	0,04	5225	549	4,865
140	makezine	35	86	0,41	105	41	15,577
141	exoendo	35	641	0,05	2046	689	13,583
142	mattza	35	173	0,2	2149	209	12,485
143	Grandfinale1	35	646	0,05	3698	420	11,398
144	Glenn	35	158	0,22	8505	145	10,86
145	ernesthoffmann	35	111	0,32	1593	139	9,141
146	Lumiras	34	209	0,16	2409	5118	25,814
147	shorty	34	339	0,1	712	23	15,234
148	effektz	34	292	0,12	1347	288	10,935
149	sanfordsweet	34	435	0,08	1667	44	5,273
150	dealsdealer	33	241	0,14	6450	129	5,694

Famous Unsolved Codes and Ciphers

2006-07-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

This is the top 10 well-known unsolved codes and ciphers. A couple of the better-known unsolved ancient historical scripts are also thrown in, since they tend to come up during any discussion of unsolved codes. There has also been an attempt to sort this list by "fame", as defined by a loose formula involving the number of times that a particular cipher has been written about, and/or how many hits it pulls up on a moderately-sorted web search.

1. Beale Ciphers

Beale Ciphers - In 1885, a small pamphlet was published in Virginia containing a story and three encrypted messages. According to the pamphlet, around 1820 a man named Beale buried two wagons-full of treasure at a secret location in Bedford County, Virginia. He then left a small locked box with a local innkeeper, and left town, never to be seen again. The pamphlet went on to state that the innkeeper, after having not heard from Beale for many years, opened the box and discovered encrypted messages. Never able to read them, he eventually passed them along to a young friend shortly before the innkeeper's death in 1863. According to the pamphlet, the friend spent the next 20 years trying to decrypt the messages, solving only one which detailed the tons of gold, silver and jewels that were buried, along with a general location. The still unsolved messages supposedly give exact directions, and a list of who the treasure belongs to. According to the story, the friend finally decided to walk away from the quest, and publish everything they knew about the situation in the (anonymous) pamphlet, which was supposedly published by another friend of the innkeeper. There have been many exhaustive searches for the treasure, and much effort spent on decoding the other messages, without (confirmed) success. There are many claimed solutions , usually bannered in combination with a book that someone is trying to sell, but no one has ever been able to produce a duplicatable decryption method. There have also been some pretty compelling arguments that the entire original story was a hoax . There are several inconsistencies in the pamphlet's text, and even speculation that the story was a parable related to Masonic rituals . More information can be found here .

2. Voynich Manuscript

Voynich Manuscript - At least 400 years old, this is a 232-page illuminated manuscript entirely written in a secret script. It is filled with copious drawings of unidentified plants, herbal recipes of some sort, astrological diagrams, and many small human figures in strange plumbing-like contraptions. The script is unlike anything else in existence, but is written in a confident style, seemingly by someone who was very comfortable with it. In 2004 there were some compelling arguments which described a technique that would seemingly prove that the manuscript was a hoax , but to date, none of the described techniques have been able to replicate a single section of the Manuscript, so speculations continue. More information about the hoax possibility is here and more information about the Manuscript can be found at voynich.net and crystalinks.com .

3. Dorabella Cipher

Dorabella Cipher - In 1897, the well-known composer Edward Elgar (of "Pomp and Circumstance" fame) sent an encrypted message to a 23-year-old friend, Miss Dora Penny . To this day, it still has not been solved.

4. Zodiac Killer ciphers

Zodiac Killer ciphers - From 1966 to 1974, the Zodiac serial killer sent more than 20 written communications to police officials. Most of these messages have been cracked, but there are still some that remain unsolved. The killer was never caught.

5. D'Agapeyeff

D'Agapeyeff - Alexander d'Agapeyeff wrote an elementary book on cryptography in 1939, entitled "Codes and Ciphers." In the first edition, he included a challenge cipher. Nobody's solved it, and he embarrassedly admitted later that he no longer knew how he'd encrypted it. It was left out of the second and later editions. Some think it was botched, and many think it could still be solved despite that. It has lots of "phenomena" noted, but nothing close to a crack.

6. Linear A

Linear A - In 1900, a large number of clay tablets dating back to 1800 BC were discovered in Crete. The tablets appear to use two different types of scripts, which were named "Linear A" and "Linear B." Linear B was finally deciphered in the 1950s. Linear A remains unsolved.

7. The Phaistos Disk

The Phaistos Disk - A circular clay tablet about six inches across, discovered in Crete in the early 1900s, and believed to date back to 1800 BC. With an "alphabet" of 45 different symbols, 241 signs are stamped into both sides in spiral patterns. There has been much speculation about its meaning, with wildly variant claimed solutions so far. It's also been suggested that the disk might turn out to be a Rosetta Stone to help decipher Linear A, since it was discovered near a fragment of a Linear A tablet. More information here .

8. Chaocipher

Chaocipher - In 1918, J.F. Byrne created a machine-based cryptographic system. In 1953, he used it to create a code challenge as part of his autobiography "Silent Years". There are at least three people who know how the system works: his son, and two editors of Cryptologia who were let in on the secret in 1990. There's a lot of known plaintext available, as well as some hints, but no break yet. The mechanism used to generate it fits in a cigar box.

9. Chinese "Gold Bar" ciphers

Chinese "Gold Bar" ciphers - In 1933, seven gold bars were allegedly issued to a General Wang in Shanghai, China. These gold bars appear to represent metal certificates related to a bank deposit with a U.S. Bank. The gold bars themselves have pictures, Chinese writing, some form of script writing, and cryptograms in latin letters.

10. RSA Challenges

RSA Challenges - There are a number of modern computer-based challenges, including several factoring challenges from RSA Labs that have implications for the strength of public-key systems, and some equivalently difficult elliptic curve challenges , also relating to public-key cracking ( check here for Bruce Schneier's high-math analysis of the RSA/Elliptic Curve debate ). As of this writing, the most recently-cracked RSA Challenge was in November 2005, when RSA-640 , a 193-digit number, was successfully factored (which won a $20,000 prize). There are several more on the list, with prizes up to $200,000, which have not yet been cracked. Many fly-by-night snake-oil crypto companies also put out challenges that are arguably famous because the media sometimes pick up the challenge uncritically , but they are usually not worth mentioning on this list.

Collection of speedruns

2006-03-28T06:14:00.000-08:00

DOOM 3 @ Marine skill (2005)
Joseph Wilcox does 27 segments of DOOM 3 at Marine Skill in only 1 hour and 40 minutes.
Download video (412 MB)

Arkanoid (NES)
Jean-François Durocher does Arkanoid in 16 minutes and 30 seconds, without losing 1 ball!
Download video (73 MB)

Tetris (NES)
Jean-François Lapointe gets a massive score of 999999 in 4 minutes and 6 seconds!
Download video (11 MB)

Silen Hill 2 (Playstation 2)
Simon Berggren does Silent Hill on the PS2 in 57:12.
Download video (120 MB)

DOOM II @ Nightmare lvl (2004)
Drew DeVore does good ol DOOM II at Nightmare Level in 29:56.
Download video (46 MB)

Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
Derek Kisman does DKC in 50 minutes.
Download video (109 MB)

Half-Life (2004)
David Rickard does Half-Life in 45:45.
Download video (170 MB)

Half-Life 2
David Gibbons does Half-Life 2 in 2 hours and 14 minutes.
Download video (553 MB)

The Legend of Zelda (NES)
Mike Damiani does the original Legend of Zelda in 35 minutes and 50 seconds.
Download video (100 MB)

Castlevania (NES)
Jeremiah Jones does the original Castlevania in 13 minutes and 13 seconds.
Download video (19 MB)

Super Mario World (SNES)
Tim Offermann does Super Mario World in just 1 hour and 23 minutes. He exposed a little easter egg in the last minute.
Download video (289 MB)

Final Fantasy III (SNES)
Peter Tiernan does Final Fantasy III in 5 hours and 37 minutes.
Download video (3.6 GB)

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (NES)
Tom Votava does Indiana Jones on the NES under 5:13.
Download video (7.2 MB)

Diablo II: Lord of Destruction
David Gibbons does Diablo II in 1 hour and 58 minutes.
Download video (54 MB)

Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
Mike Damiani does Link to the past in 1 hour and 44 minutes.
Download video (162 MB)

Resident Evil 3 (PSX)
Damien Moody does Resident Evil 3 on Hard mode in 1 hour and 24 minutes and achieves A-Rank.
Download video (139 MB)

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (GENESIS)
Philippe Henry does Sonic 2 in 24 minutes and 23 seconds on the good-ol Sega.
Download video (50 MB)

The Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Xbox)
Derek Kisman does Sonic Prince of Persia in 2 hours and 9 minutes on the Xbox.
Download video (582 MB)

Wario Land 4 (GBA)
N. Kessler does Warop Land in 1 hours and 2 minutes on an emulated Gameboy Advance.
Download video (199 MB)

Devil May Cry (PS2)
Wesley Corron does Devil May Cry on the Playstation 2 in 51 minutes and 29 seconds in Super Dante mode. Note: The 'Super Dante' character becomes available if you beat the game at the hardest difficulty level.
Download video (262 MB)

Solomon's Key (NES)
Joel Yliluoma does Solomon's Key on an Emulated NES in 22 minutes and 44 seconds.
Download video (54 MB)

Vice: Project Doom (NES)
Josh Ballard does Project Doom on a NES emulator in 13:03.
Download video (46 MB)

Ren & Stimpy: Stimpy's Invention (GENESIS)
Adrian Feiertag does Ren & Stimpy on the GENESIS in 9:02.
Download video (16 MB)

Everybody stop using IE7. No I'm serious!

2006-03-24T02:22:00.000-08:00

Everyone has seen all the marvelous posts on the new and improved IE7 on IEBlog and meyerweb etc.

IE has been dead for a couple of years. It has given other browser some room to develop. Now that we have good alternatives to IE like (Firefox), I say don't start using IE 7 again. Why you ask ?

You can bet your money that IE will be adding non-standard features to IE7. People will start making websites with those non-standard features and voila they wont work in FF.

I say the hell to IE7, they killed Netscape once and after that, they made no development in the browser for years. Leaving the masses with an old browser!

We are all to benefit if IE7 just died. Plain and simple.

Edit: I pulled my comment up here to display the non-standard feature policy of MS.

Okay maybe I'm a bit to expressive. But you have to agree on that they push the nonstandard features to firmly lock the developers to MS products.

They've done it with XML, Java, CSS and more.

Example:
In Interdev & Visual Studio, Cursor:Hand is defaulted and not Cursor:Pointer, which is the correct standard

0111 ways to spot a Geek

2006-03-23T05:50:00.000-08:00

When you meet somebody at a bar,club, LAN party, whatever and think he might be Geek. Follow these 7 steps to see if he actually is.

1.
Look for tattoos, if he has 42 tattooed in binary (101010) on his body. Than he must be a diehard geek.

2.
Drinks caffeine beverages (coffee, jolt!, regular cola) all day long, than it must be a sign .

3.
Keeps people addressing as users, and thinks the bartender is the administrator.

4.
Carries his favorite William Gibson on his PDA/Cell phone. "The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel" says it all.

5.
Has the opening song of Commander Keen, Final Fantasy VII, or Zak McCracken as a ringtone on his mobile.

6.
Likes bionically enhanced woman like 7-of-9 and *artist* enhanced like Larry Croft.

7.
Keeps calling you by your Handle IRL (in real life).

Final thoughts...
Use these tips wisely and when you do spot a Geek... embrace him and know you're not alone any more.