Archive for October 8, 2004

Post-Debate Poll Results

Complete debate transcript, via the Washington Post.

This list will grow as I get more links. These are all linking directly to the results, by the way.
CNN.com
CBS News
MSNBC
Fox News
Yahoo News

Kerry Takes Lead Over Bush in AP Poll

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Programming Challenge!

Ok folks, this is a challenge. The prize will be a very hackable Polaroid i-Zone Webster ‘scanner’ doohickey. It’s more like a handheld webcam with built in memory, although it can’t do live streaming with the software provided. You can however hack the interface software (TWAIN compliant), hack the casing so it can take photos of stuff without holding it up against the items, and it’s got a simple serial interface (very simple) so I’m sure an enterprising Linux hacker can figure out how to get the data out of it.

What’s the challenge? In 1988, Michael J. Mefford created a utility for PC Magazine called DIRMAGIC, short for Directory Magic. It’s a kick ass little utility, but it has some short comings. It can’t handle large drives (where large is still significantly short of half a gig). It can’t handle more than (approximately) 1k files in a directory. It’s slow full screen due to BIOS call emulation, and even slower in a window. It can’t handle long file names (obviously). Essentially, computers exceeded the programs built-in future-headroom. But, I have never found anything that can take it’s place. So, I issue this challenge. I’m looking for a Win32 Console mode app to replace DirMagic. So that this isn’t a blind challenge, I’m including “screenshots” and a zip of the program. It’s comprised entirely of an 8 kilobyte .COM file. All that functionality in 8k. Obviously, I don’t expect that in the W32 Console mode version. 🙂 Lastly, it would really kick ass if the winner makes it open source. GPL not required, as I like the MPL‘s approach better anyway. Screenshots and the zip are inside.
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