In 2001, a trial began for the 1998 embassy bombings in East Africa. Prosecutors wanted to try Osama bin Laden along with the four men they had in custody, but in order to do so, they needed to prove he was the head of a criminal organization and charge him under racketeering laws (similar to the head of a mafia). To this end they enlisted the help of Jamal al-Fadl who build a foundation story that bin Laden was a criminal mastermind behind the organization Al-Qaeda. In reality, Bin Laden had a very small group. Some militants came to him for funding, however they were mostly independent and set their own objectives. Propaganda videos bin Laden produced were filmed with hired soldiers who were told to bring their own uniforms and weapons.

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I originally intended this site to have many well though-out articles that would help bring things into perspective for its readers. Spam problems, server issues and a lack of time caused this site to be offline for the better part of a year. However a recent e-mail entitled “Agree or Delete,” made me realize just how important imperative it is for individuals to stand up for what is relevant. The focus of the site has changed into more a of a blog format, with the hopes of inspiring others that with the mass communication offered to us, we as individuals can make a massive impact on our world. The following is my open response to “Agree or Delete” …

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On Friday I received a call from a friend informing me of an event that seemed to have escaped the main stream news under seemingly more pressing stories about John Edward’s affair and the Olympic games. Major fighting has broken out between Russia and Georgia. The main stream media caught up by the end of the weekend. Wes Burney, a History Graduate who has been following the story for some time, gives us a play-by-play via his twitter feed

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I created a new script, oggfolder2mp3, to recursively convert ogg files into mp3s while maintaining file meta-data (i.e. copying vorbis comments to MP3 ID3 tags).

My mom sent me this simple problem.Combine four fours arithmetically (i.e. 4 / 4 – 4 * 4) so the result is 20. The following solution is written in C++ and uses brute force to find all possible solutions:

/*
 *  combo.cxx - Four Fours Combination Problem Solver
 *              (using brute force)
 *
 *  Solves the simple problem: How do you combine four fours 
 *       using standard arithmetic operations to equal 20.
 *
 *  This program solves this puzzle using brute force and 
 *       shows the answer ignoring order of operations.
 *
 *
 *  Sumit Khanna / /tech/
 *    free to modify and redistribute
 */

#include <iostream>
using std::cout;
using std::endl;

int doOp(char op, int a,int b) {
  if(op == '+') {
    return a + b;
  }
  else if(op == '-') {
    return a - b;
  }
  else if(op == '*') {
    return a * b;
  }
  else if(op == '/') {
    return a / b;
  }
  else {
    cout << "Error. Invalid Operation " << op << endl;
    exit(2);
    return 0;
  }
}

int main(int argc, char **argv) {

 char *ops = new char[4];
 ops[0] =  '+';
 ops[1] =  '-';
 ops[2] =  '*';
 ops[3] =  '/';

 for(int i=0; i<4; i++) {
   for(int j=0; j<4; j++) {
     for(int k=0; k<4; k++) {

          int r = doOp(ops[i],4,4); 
          r = doOp(ops[j],r,4);
          r = doOp(ops[k],r,4);

          if(r == 20) {
            cout << " 4 " << ops[i] << " 4 " << ops[j] << " 4 " << ops[k] << " 4 = 20 " <<  endl;
          }

     }
   }
 }
 
 cout << "Note: Solutions ignores order of operations" << endl << endl; 

 delete[] ops;
 exit(0);

}

I’ve added a new Scripts section to the website. It contains several shell scripts I’ve written over the years for automating basic tasks on my Linux machines including Gentoo Package Updating, lnSponge which keeps track of new files in a given directory tree, and an Email Script which will e-mail the standard output of an application. Expect more scripts to be posted in the near future.

Last Thursday I had an idea, and that idea turned into purchasing a domain and creating a website. I really don’t care for any of the candidates in the current presidential race, nor do I explicitly hate Hillary (or Billary as I like to call her) more than anyone else. But she is so easy to make fun of. So I give you my creation:

HillaryClintonExplainsItAll.com

I finally got around to adding a Web Portfolio to the site. It has a list of my most recent commercial and non-profit works. For months many of these sites have had the text “Designed by PenguinDreams.org” at the bottom linking back here. Now people coming to my site will get a better idea of what I design rather than just the one site they came here from.

Rear View Mirror 0.8.5 has just been released. This version adds support for both capturing from MJPEG camera streams and serving your own HTTP/MJPEG stream from an attached device.

I just updated Rear View Mirror with some minor bug fixes. The issue with the camera link dieing after locking the computer has been resolved. The program now also has the option to keep the camera up even when motion isn’t detected.