A guy named TheSpecialist has managed to rewrite the firmware on his XBox’s DVD drive so that it reports all games (even ‘backup’ copies) as authentic Xbox media. If turning your XBox into a media center isn’t a priority for you and playing copied games is, your day has finally come. Say goodbye to modchips and softmods forever!

This news would be much more awesome if it had happened, say, three years ago. The good news is that TheSpecialist is now setting his sights on the Xbox360 and if all goes as planned it shouldn’t take too long to get things rolling.

More info here.

“I am SuitSat-1. I will destroy you.”

SuitSat is an old Soviet Orlan spacesuit that’ll soon be put into Earth’s orbit as a satellite. It’ll contain a few batteries and a 0.5 watt transmitter; an onboard voice synthesizer will transmit a greeting in multiple languages followed by an update on the satellite’s condition every 60 seconds. They’re saying the batteries should have enough juice for three to four days of operation.

You can listen to those transmissions with a scanner or transceiver by tuning in to 145.990Mhz. The ISS will also be repeating on 437.80Mhz at 10 watts. SuitSat will also transmit a ‘secret’ image via SSTV. Info on decoding that image is over here!

You’ll only have about ten minutes to listen in while the suit is overhead, so be sure to get the timing right. You can find out when to listen at AMSAT or by using NASA’s shitty Java-based J-Pass utility.

Did you know that Gran Turismo 4 is the only PS2 game capable of outputting a signal at 1080i? It’s true.

The Toy Story 3 sequel that Disney had been working on internally with no input or collaboration from Pixar has been scrapped. That’s the best news I’ve heard come out of the company since the merger.

If you’re running late for work and want a little Cream of Wheat for breakfast, make sure to leave out the maple syrup. The plastic squeeze bottle that it’s in has probably turned brittle from being in the fridge for six months and is likely to shatter when you accidentally drop it on the floor, spraying ant-attracting syrup all over the place and leaving you with just minutes to clean it up before you’re late for work.

The more you know.

Big news at work this week. We now host over 200,000 domains. We’re seriously starting to get gigantic.

We’re even bigger than RackSpace – one of our competitors who no doubt has a huge overhead. They’ve got to pay for things like phone support, international offices, Windows server licenses, an insane amount of TV advertising, and their highly-paid suit-wearing executive team no doubt has at least one Hummer and two yachts among them. We have none of those things!

Rackspace has over 500 employees. We have 30. Granted, Rackspace mostly hosts dedicated servers and requires more staff to deal with that, but it also means they need to spend much more money than we do to purchase and maintain their customers’ servers! Huh-hoo!

Aww man. The Stargate SG-1 game has been cancelled. I was kind of looking forward to playing it, and now I’ll never get the chance.

Growing up along the coast I never really understood the whole “Santa Ana” winds thing. Whenever the local news was going crazy with Santa Ana wind coverage, I was like “What are you talking about Fritz Coleman! There is no wind today! You are a pretty lousy weatherman to not know that.”

But! It turns out that Fritz Coleman wasn’t lying after all. The coast of the South Bay was mostly spared from the Santa Anas.

Now that I actually live in the Santa Ana Canyon – birthplace of this insanity – I’m beginning to see what all the fuss is about.

Last night the winds were so loud I thought my house was going to cave in. This morning as I filled my tank with gas and stood beside my car I had to fight a little to stand upright and keep a grip on the gas pump. It was as if Chuck Norris himself had blown a single breath across all of Southern California.

Learn more about Santa Ana winds at Wikipedia!

Dude.

The Diablo II MP3 player that’s on the front page of Battle.net today is taking me back. Way back.

Man that was a great game.

I’ve become a coffeeholic over the past few weeks, and that has encouraged me to do some research into the single-cup coffee-making revolution that’s sweeping the nation! Here’s what I was able to find!

In the world of single-serve coffee makers there are three basic styles from which to choose: the Coffee Pod, the K-Cup, and the T-Disc.

Coffee Pods are easy to find in supermarkets and are growing in popularity!

While Senseo may be the most popular pod coffee machine, there are many, many other machines out there that can use pods. In fact, coffee pods are probably the most popular single-serve coffee solution in use today! I’m pretty sure pods don’t involve licensing fees of any kind so they’re like the open-source of the coffee world. Anyone can make them, and anyone can make makers that can brew coffee pods.

K-Cups are used exclusively by coffee makers made by Keurig.

Each K-Cup contains a pre-measured amount of coffee or tea as well as a filter. The coffeemaker pokes a hole in the top and bottom of the sealed k-cup and forces hot water through, giving you a fresh and consistent cup of coffee every time. The variety of k-cups available is staggering and growing every day. Unfortunately they’re not widely available outside of the Internet.

T-Discs are the newest kid on the block and also the most interesting!

T-Discs look similar to K-Cups but offer much more promise! Designed to work only with Braun’s Tassimo drink machines, they work on a similar principle as K-Cups. However! The Tassimo was designed to be a “Hot Beverage” machine, not a coffee machine! Each T-Disc contains a barcode that tells the machine exactly how to to brew each drink! So whether it’s a columbian dark roast or hot chocolate it’ll always come out perfectly. The downside is that T-discs are a little more expensive than your other options, and you’ll wind up using multiple discs to make more elaborate drinks. You’d need to use an espresso T-disc followed up by a milk T-disc to make a latte, for example.

I think you probably can’t go wrong with any of these choices. Coffee pods are hot right now, but they don’t offer the consistency of K-Cups or the variety of T-Discs. It’s an exciting time to be a coffee drinker, that’s for sure!