Slashback: Playstation, CueCat, Games

This edition of Slashback has updates and clarifications on the official release of Sony's PS2 Linux, relative security among various operating systems, dirty output on power-boosted Linksys wireless access points, and more, flying hardware you might have figured was no more, and more.

Maybe a bad day at the factory? An anonymous reader submits: "I'm not sure where the other fellow got his WAP11, but mine don't show the dirty output his does." See this diagram for a much more desireable outcome, if you care to play with (a little bit of) fire.

First application should be a GPL'd AIBO obedience school. gonz writes: "An update to the previous reported linux on ps2 kit has been submitted by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) to the people previously registering interest on their technology sites. The update consist of that it will be released in May on both SCEA (us) and SCEE (pal areas, including Europe and Australia) territories. A website has been set up at this place. On a side note, registering for notification when pre-ordering can apparently be done too: 'Finally, although sales haven't yet started, if you send an e-mail with the message "subscribe" to [e-mail] we'll let you know when pre-ordering starts.'"

Lessons in obviousness. John Kozubik writes: "I have written an article describing, in a manner I have not yet seen, why the court decision by the U.S. appeals court in SF that claimed in-line linking was not fair use was inherently flawed. It is a short piece written for both the technical and the non-technical, and I think it raises a strong point concerning the arbitrary nature of browser behavior."

If they'd launch some pigs, perhaps global phones would be affordable. Guppy06 writes: "Many of you may be surprised to learn that Iridium (famous for trying to compete with cell phones and failing miserably) is still throwing up satellites (I sure was). The article on CNN tells of the technical woes of getting this particular Delta II off the pad in Vandenberg as Iridium tries to put five more spares into orbit."

Couldn't they have spayed or neutered them instead? Speaking of old hardware, Anonymous Radio Shack Employee writes: "RadioShack has sent a notice to all of its employees to destroy all CueCats (preferably with a hammer). Apparently the CueCat is among a couple of dozen items that RadioShack has given up on, and wants destroyed. The memo says that store employee's can not benefit from the items on the list. Which sucks because my store has over a hundred of these things just sitting in the back room." This week's Linux Weekly News has a great, detailed followup to the recent flap over relative OS security sparked by a post in Windows Informant.

CueCat Accessories?

[VertigoAce]

Why did RadioShack continue supporting CueCats for so long? I was there fairly recently and saw that they were selling things like CueCat holders for your desk... I don't know about other places, but Dallas stopped putting CueCat barcodes in the newspaper quite a while ago.

One doesn't

[dlleigh]

The instrument used was a spectrum analyzer. An oscilloscope looks at signals in the time domain and a spectrum analyzer looks at them in the frequency domain. Spectrum analyzers are much more complicated and much pricier than oscilloscopes.

Re:Home-made barcodes?

[delta407]

I've gotten my cats (the earlier PS/2 ones, at least) to read Codabar, Code 128, and UPC-As... pretty much everything I've told it to. Barcodes are the most "legible" when printed on a laser printer; I had to enlarge the codes a wee bit to play nicely on my Lexmark 5700.

So, yes, these little annoying plastic things can read home-made barcodes.

Re:cuecat

[gleam_mn]

I used to work for a University electronics shop and we would often have to destroy equipment for two reasons:

1) The university didn't want people dumpster diving

2) Any equipment that was donated to the university from companies like Fluke had to be destroyed prior to disposal because the agreement with Fluke stated that you weren't allowed to make a profit from donated equipment... so, no salvage (because the U still makes a profit from salvage auctions) which is how most U items go out. Also, I think to adhere to the strict letter of the agreement they didn't want that equipment getting out into peoples hands via point 1)

Not sure what the exact agreement was with the makers of the CueCat but I imagine it may well boil down to "if we don't profit from 'em, nobody should! damnit!"

Re:Errata

[ADRA]

That means you have to whois opensrs's whois database revealing:

Registrant:
Sony Computer Entertainment America
919 East Hillsdale Blvd.
2nd Floor
Foster City, CA 94404
US

Domain Name: PLAYSTATION2-LINUX.COM

Administrative Contact:
Department, Legal [e-mail]
919 East Hillsdale Blvd.
2nd Floor
Foster City, CA 94404
US
650 655 8000

Technical Contact:
Hostmaster, SCEA [e-mail]
10075 Barnes Canyon Rd.
San Diego, CA 92121
US
858-824-5500

Billing Contact:
Department, Legal [e-mail]
919 East Hillsdale Blvd.
2nd Floor
Foster City, CA 94404
US
650 655 8000

Registration Service Provider:
The Discount Domain Registry - Register your domain for only $14.99!, [e-mail]
[phone]
http://DiscountDomainRegistry.com

Record last updated on 11-Feb-2002.
Record expires on 17-Dec-2002.
Record Created on 17-Dec-2001.

Domain servers in listed order:
NS1.SCEA.COM 208.236.12.69
NS2.SCEA.COM 208.236.12.67

Re:How does one do that thing with oscilloscope?

[John Miles]

I saw some cheap used oscilloscopes in a local electronics surplus store at the weekend. If I got my hands on one, how would I go about measuring the frequencies like those guys did with their Linksys? Does one have to buy an antenna, or can it be made? Do all oscilloscopes have the necessary inputs for this. Are there any other considerations? Is this directional (depending on antenna, I guess)?

The instrument used to make those screen shots is a spectrum analyzer [ebay.com], not an oscilloscope. Both instruments display amplitude on a vertical scale, but an oscilloscope displays amplitude versus time while a spectrum analyzer displays amplitude versus frequency. They are very different tools, and any serious RF hacker will own both.

In general, an analyzer is much more sensitive (they normally display RF signal power on a log10 scale, so their dynamic range in voltage terms can exceed 100,000,000:1.) If you had a fast-enough/fancy-enough oscilloscope, you could run an FFT on its display and get the same basic information, but the SA is still the tool of choice for most RF work above 500 MHz. The insanely-fast scopes that can do microwave FFT analysis come with Ferrari-size price tags (literally), and they still don't have the dynamic range of a $3,000 spectrum analyzer. Different horses for different courses.

Sorry for the rather basic questions, but I'm not an EE, and I've only used an oscilloscope very briefly about 12 years ago. I really want to find out where the interference for my 2.4GHz phone is coming from, and how moving the base station helps. I also want to put an FM transmitter on my sound card, and so I want to see how that works too.

For both of those purposes, a spectrum analyzer would be the right way to go. An analyzer capable of 2.4 GHz coverage can be had for under $2K on eBay, but not much less. Some 802.11 hardware can give you reasonably-decent pictures of the 2.4 GHz spectrum, so I'd investigate that possibility first. :)

Maybe its like bagels?

[clump]

Talk to anyone that works in a bagel or donut shop and they will tell you that they throw away hundreds/thousands of units a week. Basically what isn't purchased is discarded. Surely we can think to give the units to the homeless/hungry/needy-cause, but there is apparently a legal reason not to do so. Perhaps fear of a lawsuit or maybe fear of propagating freeloading?

Re:Maybe its like bagels?

[Angry Black Man]

Surely we can think to give the units to the homeless/hungry/needy-cause, but there is apparently a legal reason not to do so.

I used to work at Publix and asked them the exact same question. Stores can't give out food because if a homeless man gets sick, the stores could be sued. Of course, Im sure homeless people would sign a release in a second for some free fried chicken...

Re:Typical stupid retailer behaivoir

[Alan Cox]

Thank the tax system - it punishes you for not doign this kind of thing. Nor alas is it just a US problem.

Whats sad is the tax system ought to encourage radio shack to take the box down the local school or college and throw them into the "fun stuff for electronics lessons" bucket

Destroying Stock

[Credne]

It is common in most large businesses to destroy extra stock. I used to work summers doing a parts inventory at a few auto dealerships and they destroyed all kinds of hardware then reported the numbers back to the manufacturer for credit.

Re:Cuecats being destroyed . . .

[UncleRoger]

Ah, see, and people laughed at the CueCat Collectors Club [techsynthesis.com]! Buwahahahaaaaa!

Re:Your own personal CueCat

[Technician]

This makes *far* more sense than what you have described your Radioshack does.
Two words.. Labor costs. A portable CD player that sells for $50 costs less than that to manufacture. If the laser or spindle motor or such goes out, you have at least an hour troubleshooting, ordering parts, looking up part numbers, keeping inventory of unique parts, replacing the part, aligning and warrenting the repair. You break even with techs at $20 per hour how?? Short answer.. replace it. Very little sold in radio shack sells for over a $100.00. I used to fix VCR's when they were a 600 to 1200 dollar item. Now that they are a 60 dollar item, I found other work.

Re:Maybe its like bagels?

[ncc74656]

Talk to anyone that works in a bagel or donut shop and they will tell you that they throw away hundreds/thousands of units a week. Basically what isn't purchased is discarded. Surely we can think to give the units to the homeless/hungry/needy-cause, but there is apparently a legal reason not to do so.

My first job ever was at a franchise of a certain somewhat large fast-food chain [mcdonalds.com], and it wasn't long before I asked why the food that was "QC'd" was pitched instead of held and shipped off to one of the local shelters. Liability was the primary reason...if some bum got sick off of a freebie burger, he could've contacted any of the hundreds of ambulance chasers [switchboard.com] in this town and sued the store into oblivion. It was hella wasteful...about the only thing you could do is keep an eye on production to minimize the waste, but it was nearly impossible to eliminate it completely.

Re:Radio Shack

[t]

You should report the incident to the EPA since it is illegal to dispose of monitors in that manner due to the amount of lead in the CRT. Here in cali I think you have to pay $15/crt to dispose of it. That should teach the bank.

t.

Re:Maybe its like bagels?

[nomadic]

It's an idiotic situation that could be easily remedied through legislation; New York City has an organization called City Harvest [cityharvest.org] that collects food from restaurants and stores, which aren't liable for any problems arising from the food.

Re:Radio Shack

[British]

Blockbuster does the same thing too, and of course, when I was an employee, I got all sorts of neat free stuff, including a Virtual Boy in their little kiosk stand. Even got some free Star Trek:Voyager trading cards way back in '96.

Magazines? they just rip the cover off. Still a perfectly readable magazine. Heck, I had about a gazillion amarays(the black vhs tape boxes they always used).

Food can be donated instead of tossed!

[TrinSF]

In the US, food doesn't *have* to be tossed. There's a national organization, Second Harvest [secondharvest.org], that arranges for surplus food donations. I think their programs vary depending on location, but in Atlanta, they have trucks that come to restaurants and grocery stores to pick up, and regular drop off points. The food goes from the restaurants to soup kitchens and food assistance pantries, where it is used or handed out in an organized fashion. They also do larger scale projects like getting surpus produce from one region in the country to another.

As far as I'm aware, in some places restauranteurs are misinformed about local rules for food donation. Second Harvest and similar organizations work to provide correct information as well as the go-betweens to organize and monitor such donations.

A quick survey on the net for "surpus food" or "food rescue" (a common term for this) turned up several meta-lists of organizations, including this one [pcma.org] which has listings for the US and Canada. It seems like there's more a misperception of legal reason that actual restrictions.

Re:Destroy the Cue Cats?!?!? Hell No!

[MathJMendl]

It's too late, they already are selling them on eBay!

http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=2002127196 [ebay.com]
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=2002287424 [ebay.com]
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem& item=2002160653 [ebay.com]

on coverless books

[ghostlibrary]

"Apparently, in the book trade, tearing the cover off a book and throwing it in the dumpster counts as destroyed."

Actually, it's: the bookstore gets refunded for all returned books, but postage to return them would be ridiculous, so the torn covers are sent instead as proof of non-sale.

Many a publisher has gone under due to returnable policies. Publisher pays for print run in advance, 1 year later gets a bunch o' torn covers plus a refund request for 60% cover price for each. No books and no pay = big loss for publisher.