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Sheep in BugTraq

Two security bug reports on the Linux version of Electric Sheep were posted on BugTraq last week: Electric Sheep window-id stack overflow and Multiple Network-related Vulnerabilities in Electric Sheep. Both bug reports conclude that

The vendor was extremely responsive and cooperative in regards to these security issues. All issues are fixed in the CVS HEAD of Electric Sheep client development and will be included in the next release.

And indeed 2.6.4 was out and in the repositories well before the report.

Frame Rate

Number of frames per minute delivered to the sheep server by the render network. The first peak at the end of September corresponds to the rendering of the first draft of the hidef flock, the one that was shown at Synergenesis, Japan, etc. The second peak is the 2nd and final draft, now in its final stages. The graph depicts the 10x increase in framerate from the introduction of the high definition pipeline.

Cybugs

Solar powered social insect robot kits.... for kids. Be sure to check out the videos:

What is a CYBUG?

The CYBUG SERIES is a new, exciting type of educational kit. It combined elements of electronics, robotics, mechanics, and biology in a unique and lovable form. It's instructional, very easy to build, and fun to customize. The instruction manual is easy to read, and describes how to solder, the function of each component, and the components function in the actual robot. These kits are intended for novice robotisists.

The operating CYBUG acts as a living organism, with behavior and instinct designed in it's circuitry. One of the most interesting characteristics of the CYBUG is it's ability to seek out it's own food source and energize itself. Just as a honeybee is attracted to a flower for it's nectar, the CYBUG is drawn to the light of the SUN-FLOWER, where it is provided with a meal of raw energy ( which it charges it's batteries with! )

The CYBUG is just one member of a new robotic eco-system which parallels nature in a unique and fascinating manner while educating it's owners in fundamentals of electronics, robotics, biology, and control systems. It is available either in kit form or with circuit board completed.

from SF

yay :)

I love working with Dean because he sends me email like this:

our disk i/o is about a 3rd of the write traffic from last week... and the average wait per io is down from ~70ms to ~20ms. yay :)

Back in August 2005 the sheep network was rendering about 23 frames per minute. Now after the high definition pipeline has finally stabilized it's cranking out 220. Frames are about 240KBytes of JPEG each. The email refers to the latest in a long series of optimizations that have allowed twinlark to remain responsive not only to the sheep network but to its many other users.

Dean and I have an interesting division of labor in the server. I make the server slower by adding features, users, and render jobs. Dean notices performance sucks, profiles, and makes it not suck :) More often a programmer's territory is by file, module, or feature. When a programmer optimizes their own code their efforts are often misdirected by attachments. Worse is premature optimization. Our system avoids these problems because Dean doesn't even know I've done something except by its effects.

oh did i mention fixing crashed disks overnight on a weekend? amazing. can't wait for the next 10x. yay :)

word of the day: Lernfreiheit

Lernfreiheit (German): Literally "Learning liberty" The ideas of academic freedom as a right of the student is German in origin. In this model ..., the student is free to pursue their own course of study, taking whatever courses they like at whatever university they choose. From wikipedia

not blogging

well strange i seem to have come to my first blogging gap. in the meantime, please refer to the good old days.

linux sheep client bugfix release

electricsheep v2.6.4 for linux released. changelog:

Protect again buffer overflows. Remove use of tif and xsetbg.

this should be the same as 2.6.3+cvs that went out on debian a few days ago.