GnuRadio has released a hardware peripheral that allows soft radio. This is going to be big. Very, very big.

Put in simple terms, this means that radio signals can be affordably processed by a general-purpose computer instead of a custom-built piece of hardware. All the frequencies flying through the air affect every bit of metal they come in contact with -- it's decoding those mashed-together frequencies meaningfully and in real time via a system electronic components that's the trick. Well, these guys have built a system that enables simulation of those components in software, allowing a single computer to emulate a vast array of radically different radio devices. It's already capable of receiving HDTV broadcasts. With the right software it could receive XM radio. Hell, with the right software a geek could now set up his own cell phone company. A big antenna (or lots of small ones) and some spectrum rights from the FCC are all that would be stopping him (well, okay -- this specific device would probably not be up to the task beyond the proof-of-concept level. But a similar one would be.).

The complete implications of this are still unclear. Up until now it's been a somewhat high-profile but imposibly nerdy project that no one was sure would ever bear fruit. But now it has -- or at least, it has overcome the theoretical hurdles that could have made software radio intractable, and released a tool making homebrew radio accessible to everyone. No one's sure exactly what effect these developments will have, but everyone seems to agree that it's a revolutionary shift in how broadcasting can be done -- and more importantly, by whom it can be done.

Satellite transmissions, police band communication, virtually anything that's broadcast can now be picked apart or put back together by your PC -- and that includes massively parallel attempts at decryption. Security through obscurity is no longer an option, nor is it far-fetched to imagine that folks will now spend their spare computer cycles trying to crack the encryption coming from HBO's satellite (or the government's) instead of searching for aliens.

This puts a lot of power in the hands of anybody with a thousand bucks. Look for it to be outlawed almost immediately.

merry day back at the office, everybody! woohoo! it's so exciting. *slits throat*

i hope everybody had wonderful christmases. my gift from santa this year was seven pounds straight to my ass, given in the form of four fatty, delicious, consecutive meals from thursday night until sunday. my grandparents' 80th birthday at l'auberge chez francois was out of this world; there were something like seven courses, and the service was absolutely impeccable, even though the waiter tried to serve wine to my 17 year old sister.

in other materialistic news, i mainly received a lot of clothing, gift certificates, alias season 1 dvd, and the best gift of all from tommy: jewelry in the form of diamonds.

...

diamond earrings, that is! HAHAHA. did i get anybody? i can hear tommy breaking out into a cold sweat from here.

the other best xmas gift to come our way was one downloaded illegally/purchased by tommy - DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION! you may think i kid, but it is the best thing ever. completely addictive, and a good workout to boot. screw marathon running, i'm going on a 24/7 DANCE MARATHON from now on.

anyway, the rest of 2004 will be spent completing my last grad school application (though i may apply to one or two more places, because i'm starting to panic about the fact that i've only applied to three grad schools total, and out of those three grad schools, only one would be not insane to admit me), and studying for my driver's license! yes, i've regressed and am 16 again! actually, i need to renew the license, and as it stands, i have two speeding tickets on my record. apparently if you have two or more moving violations, you must retake the computer test in order to keep your license. suckage. this is an embarrassing fact, but i failed my first driver's test the first time around. my mom told me to study, but i thought it was more important to make out with my 18 year-old, van halen-obsessed, ponytail-wearing boyfriend at the time the night before. if you can believe that i ever had a 18 year-old, van halen-obsessed, ponytail-wearing boyfriend when i was a sweet and clean-cut 15 year-old.

but this time, i will triumph on the test! i will blow the DMV away with my knowledge of how far back you must drive from a fire truck or how old a child must be to not have to sit in a safety seat. i can barely stand the suspense. it will be awesome.

Well, I hope everyone had a good Christmas and/or Channukah. Santa brought me just what I wanted: checks! Hurrah! I'm planning to wait until MacWorld and its inevitable surprise announcements pass by, then take the plunge and spring for an iPod. What'd you kids get?

Aside from the crass materialism, there've been some other good bits: seeing old friends who're back in town; watching It's A Wonderful Life (moral: never trust the handicapped); getting smacked down at MarioKart by Jeff's ten year-old brother's irritating friends; and Jon starting a new Christmas Eve tradition, as we unscrewed a very festive bottle of Thunderbird, which, surprisingly, none of us had previously sampled (for the similarly uncultured: think rubbing alcohol and sugar).

And then there was the family. Tending to the holiday emotional needs of divorced parents gets old pretty fast, but my sister and I managed to fulfill our filial duties without going completely crazy. Christmas Eve dinner with our Dad, his girlfriend Nancy and our Grandmother was particularly nice. Grandma's a retired English teacher and foreign service wife with a fiery intellect and a lovely Vermonter demeanor. I'm incredibly fond of her. And although it's a bit sad to see her decline progressing -- the 24th marked the first time I've seen her tell a story, and as she wrapped it up, begin telling the same story again -- she's still doing pretty well for a dame in her mid-nineties. And they're all good stories, anyway.

Christmas Day was spent with my Mom and her boyfriend Ray, and they'd decorated a tree, put together a vast array of fun little wrapped things under it (all addressed from "Donner", "Mrs. Claus" and the like, just like when I was a kid), and generally let me regress as far back into my childhood as I could while simultaneously complaining about lower back pain. Plus, Mom's chestnut stuffing: oh man. It's one of those rare foods that takes more calories to prepare than it provides, but fortunately I wasn't the one doing the shelling. Between that and a bitchin' turkey, it was a tasty spread, and a great way to pass the day.

So Christmas was good, although I'm still smack in the middle of the age range where I'm a kind of familial free agent, which makes things a little awkward and embarassingly wistful. But life is resuming back at the apartment, and we're all trying to figure out what to do with ourselves for New Year's -- a holiday that's clearly better-suited to dissolute twentysomethings.