An Laptop, camera, and a motorized curtain = Privacy?

It’s automation taken to the absurd? Or is it? Niklas Roy (Berlin, Germany) has an old storefront with a big window facing towards the street. He’s installed a small but small smart curtain, in the shop window. Take an laptop, and camera and hook them into the motorized curtain, and there’s a small but smart curtain that races back and forth, blocking the line of sight of pedestrians…

Is this sensible? I dunno, I would of just gone with a larger curtain…

Savage Worlds – Test Drive v6

Savage World’s is a semi-generic Role Playing system, but similar to D&D and many other games, they release “Savage Settings” which are settings designed to be used with Savage Worlds….  For example:

  • SlipStream – Pulp era, Sci-Fi
  • Wizards & Warriors – D&D style epic fantasy
  • DeadLands Reloaded – Horror / Western
  • The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane – Solomon Kane
  • Pirates of the Spanish Main – Pirates!

The system is designed to be “Fun! Fast! and Furious!”, and is some what rules lite.  It’s not as number crunchy as some systems, and character creation can be extremely fast…

Give it a try, here’s a link to the Test Drive edition, which is only 16 pages…  But it contains enough to create your own characters, and actually play the game.  It’s a lite version of the explorer’s edition of the system.  The Explorer’s edition is the core book, and is only $10 last time I checked…

Renaming 2 thousand Files? Do it the Python way…

I ran into a situation earlier that I needed to bulk rename the file extension on a couple thousand files….

The first hurtle was that a majority of the files had a “\”  (or was it “/”?) in it.  Since I am on a Unix platform, it appears that the os.listdir function wasn’t able to see those files, since I believe that’s a reserved character.  These files were originally  created on an OS/2 based computer…

So I ended up using NameChanger, and it is a utility that works well…  Especially since it’s free..  The major drawback that I saw with NameChanger is that it didn’t seem to refresh it’s list of files once they were renamed…  And it clears the Find / Replace (Original Text / New Text) fields after running.

But once that hurdle was cleared, I needed to add file extensions…  So, what does any programmer do in a case like this? Write an python application:

import os
import sys
filenames = os.listdir (".")
for filename in filenames:
    if filename.endswith ("html.txt"):
        new_filename = filename.replace (".txt", "")
        os.rename (filename, new_filename)
    (shortname, extension) = os.path.splitext (filename)
    if extension == "":
        new_filename = filename +".txt"
        os.rename (filename, new_filename)

Yes, this is a very single purpose application, but if someone finds it useful feel free to use this as a starting point.

The application will gather a list of files that are in the current directory, anything that has an “.html.txt” extension will be renamed to .txt.  If there is no file extension then an .txt extension will be added…

Why did I make this?  I have a directory that I use to gather usenet messages in, and quicklook wouldn’t work until I renamed them to .txt (or .jpg, etc).  Since this directory was 99% text files, I needed a fast and dirty way to rename them, thus the script above.

Feel free to make any suggestions or to propose better methods just leave them in the comments…

BubbleGum Crisis 2032/2033 Scoreboard

Well, consider this a pass it on moment…

I am cleaning up my computer, and found a post from Jeanne Hedge, that I saved from alt.fan.bgcrisis…(Of course, Jeanne mentions that there’s no attributions for this post, but the original was from February 24, 1996…)

Here is a tabulation of the destruction done in the Original BubbleGum Crisis 2032/2033 OVA’s…

   BUBBLEGUM CRISIS SCOREBOARD

  1. Number of ADP helicopters trashed: 10
          Tinsel City 4
          Blow-Up 2
          Revenge Road 2
          Red Eyes 2
          Scoop Chase 2

  2. Number of times Priss gives Leon the brush-off: 6
          Tinsel City 2
          Born to Kill 2
          Blow-Up 2 (including refusing his hand)

  3. Number of times the girls take the piss out of Nene: 2
          Revenge Road 1
          Scoop Chase 1

  4. Number of boomers wasted by the Knight Sabers: 27
          Tinsel City 6
          Born to Kill 4
          Blow-Up 3
          Moonlight Rambler 1 (Sylvie)
          Red Eyes 3 1/2 (Largo a joint effort with Leon)
          Double Vision 1/2 (joint effort with Reika and Kou)
          Scoop Chase 9

  5. Number of boomers wasted by the ADP: 2 1/2
          Tinsel City 1 (by Leon)
          Blow-Up 1
          Red Eyes 1/2 (Largo a joint effort with the Knight Sabers)

  6. Number of motoroids totalled: 3
          Tinsel City 1
          Moonlight Rambler 1
          Red Eyes 1
          (all Priss')

  7. Number of times Priss gets nicked for speeding: 2
          Blow-Up 1
          Scoop Chase 1

  8. Number of times Linna moans about money: 5
          Tinsel City 1
          Born to Kill 2
          Revenge Road 2

  9. Number of times Sylia laughs: 4
          Revenge Road 2
          Scoop Chase 2

 10. Number of gratuitous maniacal laughs by villains: 3
          Revenge Road 1
          Red Eyes 1
          Scoop Chase 1

 11. Number of times the girls look realistically knackered after a fight: 1
          Red Eyes 1

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

    BREAKING THE RULES

     The Knight Sabers, according to info translated from B-Club, have
     eleven rules of conduct. Let's see how often they break them...

  1. Do not divulge any information concerning this organisation.
     Well, people do work out the identities of certain members
          Mason in Blow-Up
          Sylvie in Moonlight Rambler
          Leon, Anri and Largo in Red Eyes
          Reika in Double Vision
          Lisa in Scoop Chase
     But nobody actually *gives* anything away.

  2. Do not act upon a personal grudge.
     Given half a chance, Priss would in several episodes, but the
     others always join her in the end. Luckily, considering Rule 11.

  3. Do act upon the mutual consent of all members.
     Priss, clear your desk. (Red Eyes)

  4. Do not secede from this organisation.
       Naughty, naughty Priss-chan!
          Red Eyes (she rejoins later)

  5. Members are personally responsible for any damage done to the
     organisation's equipment unless that damage was unavoidable.
     Priss is going to have to do a *lot* of concerts to pay for her
     hardsuit and motoroid...
          Red Eyes

  6. Do not divulge any information regarding our clients.  Fair enough.

  7. Do not gather information on your own. The task of intelligence
     gathering is to be distributed evenly among all the members.
     Sounds good to me.
          In Tinsel City, Priss is doing what she was told (until
          she's chased by boomers without her hardsuit, then she's
          surviving)

  8. Do keep in contact with all the other members regularly.
     Priss, Linna and even Sylia are in for a spanking.
          Scoop Chase

  9. The members do not know each other outside of this organisation.
     You're all fired!
          Born to Kill
          Blow-Up
          Revenge Road
          Moonlight Rambler
          Double Vision

 10. Do not get involved with a man.
     No wonder some people think they might be lesbians.
     Linna, time to go learn about the birds and the bees again.
          Revenge Road
          Moonlight Rambler

 11. The penalty for violating any of the ten regulations listed above
       is death. Fortunately, Sylia is forgiving and understanding of the circumstances.


 

Backing up virtual machines with Time Machine

One of the improvements in Parallels v6 is better support for Time Machine, if you are using a Disk Image based backup (eg. Not using a Boot Camp Partition).  Sadly, there doesn’t appear to be any backup improvements for us Boot Camp users…

According to Parallels:

One of the ways to back up your virtual machine(s) is to use the Mac built-in Time Machine Utility; it’s one of the easiest ways to keep your computer safe.

Parallels Desktop 6 for Mac includes improved integration with Time Machine.

When backing up the virtual machine, it will only backup the recent changes (the latest snapshot), but not the whole virtual hard drive.

Thus, the backup process will take less time and use less space on your Time Machine storage device.

To enable improved integration with Time Machine, please go to Virtual Machine Configuration, choose Options and hit Backup.

Select “Optimize for Time Machine” in SmartGuard menu.

If you do not want your virtual machine to be backed up by Time Machine, you need go to Virtual Machine Configuration –> Options –> Backup and put a checkmark on “Do not back up with Time Machine”.

via KB Parallels: Backing up virtual machines with Time Machine.

I have examined my Time Machine drive, and the Boot Camp partition doesn’t seem to be backed up in any way, which is what I expected. So these changes appear to be directed only at the Parallels disk image(s), which is what is implied by the application, but the knowledge base article doesn’t state.  The Knowledge base article can be read to imply that all versions of the virtual machine are backed up, implying a Boot Camp solution…

Prediction Time, Missing Sync for Windows System 7 Phone?

Microsoft has been making alot of noise lately about how they will be supplying software to allow Windows System 7 System Phones will support Macintosh Syncing.  Well, I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but Microsoft has promised quite a bit in the past, and rarely delivers everything they promise.

Microsoft is like the Genie’s out of Classic mythology.  Where they twist the wish, sure they give what you ask for, but you’ll never be happy with what you get.

For example, Macintosh Exchange support, here’s Entourage.  Oh, what do you mean you want and need VBA support?  Who uses that?

I suspect that if they make a Home Brew package for syncing with the Mac is going to be seriously under powered.  After all, will they support iTunes music syncing?

I suspect it is more likely that they will either customize/OEM a Missing Sync product, or include a full license for a “Missing Sync for Windows System 7 System Phones” with the hardware….  Of course, I’m speculating that MarkSpace will be producing something along this line… But it’s likely after all, they already have a Windows Mobile product out….