Slashdot Mirror
Slashback: Brilliance, Delay, Simputer
It's all fun and games until you end up in Bankruptcy. Born Game writes: "Loki was supposed to be declared dead today by the bankruptcy trustee. Dennis Powell has followed their story closely, and he has written a wrapup that will break your heart and make you mad."
I hope he's making it longer than Cryptonomicon. We reported that Neal Stephenson's new book Quicksilver was due last month. An anonymous reader pointed to this page at Amazon UK, writing "the book is due out March 6th next year, not this year. Meh."
Maybe calling it Brilliant wasn't such a bright idea. asv108 writes: "According to this article from MP3 Newswire, Cnet's Download.com has removed KaZaA media desktop due to concerns over Brilliant Digital Entertainment's hidden software."
It's still available elsewhere though; if you or someone you love wants to use such software regardless, TDScott writes: "In case anyone is having trouble convincing their friends that there's a problem with the b3d spyware installed with KaZaA, I've put together a quick summary page on what the problem is and how to remove it (use AdAware with caution) - pointing people to it might save you hours of explanation."
I hope these are available stateside, too. Pankaj writes "Simputer is All set to hit the market in India. The Open Source Computer (Both Hardware/Software) Has found its first makers in Encore Solutions who will start selling it within the next one month. {sources internal}. This will give the iPaq and Palms a run for their money, as the simputer is loaded with features like internal modem, smartcard reader and usb port. There are plans to add a gsm phone into it too -- watch out, Nokia! And one third the price; it's supposed to be 10,000 Indian Rupees. Thats around $210 try comparing it to the ipaq.
Did you ask what it is based on? It's Linux 2.4, man, with gtk and its developer kit it's as free as the hardware itself. This looks like hot stuff to go for.
bollocks.
peace
God has a hard on for Marines, because we kill everything we see. He plays His games, we play ours. To show our appreciation for so much power, we keep heaven packed with fresh souls. God was here before the marine corps, so you can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the corps!
I bet you're the kind of guy that would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the god damned common courtesy to give him a reach around.
Who said that? Who the fuck said that? Who's the slimy communist shit twinkle-toed cocksucker who just signed his own death warrant?
There is no racial bigotry here. I do not look down on niggers, kikes, wops or greasers. Here, you are all equally worthless.
A day without blood is like a day without sunshine.
Jesus Christ Pyle, don't try too hard. If God would have wanted you up there he would have miracled your ass up there, wouldn't he?
Are you quitting on me?! Well, are you?! Then quit, you slimy fucking walrus-looking piece of shit! Get the fuck off of my obstacle! Get the fuck down off of my obstacle! Now! Move it! I'm going to rip your balls off, so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world! I will motivate you, Private Pyle, if it short-dicks every cannibal on the Congo!
These are great days we're living, bros! We are jolly green giants, walking the earth with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know. After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shooting.
A rifle is only a tool. It's a hard heart that kills. If your killer instincts are not clean and strong you will hesitate at the moment of truth. You will not kill. You will become dead Marines. And then you will be in a world of shit. Because Marines are not allowed to die without permission! Do you maggots understand?
If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is poontang.
The dead know only one thing: it's better to be alive.
I guess they'd rather be alive than free. Poor dumb bastards.
Were you born worthless, or did you have to work at it?
You know there's not a single horse in the entire country of Vietnam? There's definitely something wrong with that.
I think what she's trying to say is that you black boys pack too much meat.
I wanted to meet stimulating and interesting people of an ancient culture, and kill them. I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill.
Anyone who runs is V.C. Anyone who stands still is well-disciplined V.C.
Well, if you ask me, uh, we're shooting the wrong gooks.
Today you people are no longer maggots. Today you are Marines. You're part of a brotherhood.
Pyle, you had best unfuck yourself and start shitting me Tiffany cufflinks or I will definitely fuck you up!
My thoughts drift back to erect nipple wet dreams about Mary Jane Rottencrotch and the Great Homecoming Fuck Fantasy. I am so happy that I am alive, in one piece and short. I'm in a world of shit... yes. But I am alive. And I am not afraid.
old enough to set the table, old enough to pass the meat
I like pot.
peace post
Right now, the /.'s competitor news site Kuro5Hin is down.
Here is a mirror.
Alan Thicke's Journal
My Slashdot ads say "
The plan was a good one: Port the most popular Windows games to Linux. It would involve licensing the original titles, coding the ports, and selling them to a world full of eager Linux users and growing every day.
I think the word that they are looking for is "giving them away for free". Because that's what happened.
Just nuke both Israel and Palestine and get the damn thing over with. We're just going do in an instant what they'd take decades to eventually accomplish anyways -- kill off each other.
I hear that Neal Stephenson is writing it (Quicksilver, his upcoming book) with a pen in an effort to make it shorter.
Here's hoping he fails.
..for another year? Damn! Damn damn damn damn! I guess I really should have been looking at more sources as to when this thing was gonna come out. A friend that worked at the Tattered Cover bookstore here in Denver told me it would be out in May, I read it somewhere else...I had expectations! Guess I'll have to curb those expectations and become better informed...damn it.
If these walls could talk they'd probly still ignore me. --MF DOOM
All these stories have been posted before.
Are you people actually paying for this???
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
I have to sit this way since the implant.
Liberate your mind in two clicks or less.
ok, so we all know about the evils of the popular networks. are there any good ones left?
it can't be down to gnutella and small opennap networks, can it?
1.You see a gorgeous girls at a party. You go up to her and say, "I'm fantastic in bed." - That's Direct Marketing.
2. You're at a party with a bunch of friends and see a gorgeous girl. One of your friends goes up to her and pointing at you says, "He's fantastic in bed." - That's Advertising.
3. You see a gorgeous girl at a party. You go up to her and get her telephone number. The next day you call and say, "Hi, I'm fantastic in bed." - That's Telemarketing.
4. You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl. You get up and straighten your tie, you walk up to her and pour her a drink. You open the door for her, pick up her bag after she drops it, offer her a ride, and then say, "By the way, I'm fantastic in bed." - That's Public Relations.
5. You're at a party and see a gorgeous girl. She walks up to you and says, "I hear you're fantastic in bed." - That's Brand Recognition.
old enough to set the table, old enough to pass the meat
It runs a StrongARM chipset and runs linux for $210? Many newer palms sell for about 300-400 bucks. That thing better come stateside. Unfortunately, it doesn't say whether it will have a hard drive. It looks like its big enough to have one.
Why yes I am paranoid! Thanks for asking!
selling them to a world full of eager Linux users
I guess Loki has figured out the difference between users and customers.
Takahashi Rumiko made beats! DON, taku, DON, taku. . .
A terminally ill boy had his dying wish granted in Australia this month, but ethicists are still at odds over whether it was the right thing to do.
The wish was not for a trip to Disneyland or to meet a famous sports star. Instead, the 15-year-old wanted to lose his virginity before he died of cancer.
The boy, who remains anonymous but was called Jack by the Australian media, did not want his parents to know about his request. Because of his many years spent in hospital, he had no girlfriend or female friends.
Jack died last week, but not before having his last wish granted. Without the knowledge of his parents or hospital staff, friends arranged an encounter with a prostitute outside of hospital premises. All precautions were taken and the organizers made sure the act was fully consensual.
The issue has sparked fierce debate over the legal and ethical implications of granting the boy's request. By law, Jack was still a child, and the woman involved could in theory face charges for having sex with a minor.
The debate was sparked by the hospital's child psychologist, who wrote a letter to Life Matters, a radio show in which academics debate ethical and moral dilemmas. The scenario was presented in the abstract, with no details about the boy's identity.
"He had been sick for quite a long period and his schooling was very disrupted, so he hadn't had many opportunities to acquire and retain friends, and his access to young women was pretty poor," the psychologist said recently in an interview with Australia's The Daily Telegraph. "But he was very interested in young women and was experiencing that surge of testosterone that teenage boys have."
Hospital staff initially wanted to pool donations to pay for a prostitute, but the ethical and legal implications prevented them from doing so. The psychologist presented members of the clergy with the dilemma and found no clear answer.
"It really polarized them," he said. "About half said, 'What's your problem?' And the other half said [it] demeans women and reduces the sexual act to being just a physical one."
Dr. Stephen Leeder, dean of medicine at the University of Sydney and a Life Matters panellist, said the issue was a difficult one.
"I pointed out that public hospitals operated under the expectation that they would abide by state law," he said. "While various things doubtless are done that are at the edge of that, it's important the public has confidence that the law will be followed."
Jack's psychologist, who works with children in palliative care, said the desire was driven in part by a need for basic human contact.
"In a child dying over a long period of time, there is often a condition we call 'skin hunger,' " he said. The terminally ill child yearns for non-clinical contact because "mostly when people touch them, it's to do something unpleasant, something that might hurt."
Dr. Leeder called the diagnosis "improbable."
Judy Lumby, the show's other panellist and the executive director of the New South Wales College of Nursing, argued the details as presented made it abundantly clear the boy's wish ought to be granted. "I said that I would try my darndest as a nurse to do whatever I could to make sure his wish came true," she said.
"I just think we are so archaic in the way we treat people in institutions. Certainly, if any of my three daughters were dying, I'd do whatever I could and I'm sure that you would, too."
old enough to set the table, old enough to pass the meat
Does anyone know who (if anyone) is going to maintain OpenAL? This is a promising spatial audio api, and I would hate to see it go by the wayside. Already I see dead links on their site (e.g. CVS server), and have to find backup FTP servers to get access.
std::disclaimer<std::legalese> sig=new std::disclaimer; sig->dump(); delete sig;
The problem with p2p applications is, the 'P's in p2p are kinda important. I use Kazaa, less because it is "a great application", but because theres a lot more files, because its a popular program, with all important eyeball share.. (or maybe, eardrum share.. :)
More than spending time on creating a better program, maybe what we need is to do is spend a bit of time marketing what we have to "idiots" (read: the average non-slashdot reader).
I'm not to familiar with this system does that mean that each user could have its own SmartCard. Meaning that there account can be taken from simputer to simputer?
I do like the idea and the design wouldn't mind one of these in blue. of course it would need Text-to-Speech in english. Not to crazy about learning Hindi.
What did you expect from a couple of Jew lawyers?
While trolling takes on many forms, many of them merely being nuisances (crapflooding, goat links, page widening, etc) you'll find the vast majority of trolling occurring in posts similar to posts such as your original. On Slashdot, well-thought out and reasoned posts have become indistinguishable from trolls. This is made all the more obvious by the dimness of the moderators who would mod you down -1 in a heartbeat if not for the length of your post (as if that were the measure of an argument).
I too am a troll, much along the lines as you (though perhaps you don't realize yourself as such yet). I used to post, IMO, well argued posts and was consistently modded down by the Slashdot groupthink moderators. This is not to say that I didn't eventually hit the karma cap, but that along the way it was painfully obvious that my pro-Windows, anti-GPL opinion was not tolerated here.
Upon the realization of that I had my epiphany that pearls are not to be given to swine (this seems to be the same satori experience you are having now). Pigs deserve slop, and now that is all they get from me.
In any case, I'm not one of the nuisance trolls as I listed above, but one of the provocative trolls such as yourself (please do not take offense, this is not an insult as it may first appear). The Slashdot feeding frenzy that follows any post that attempts to support Microsoft or attack Linux or posit Creationism is a wondrous thing to watch, much like a thunderstorm or a supernova. The one difference is that you, the troll, have total control over the experience, much like a god who views his masterpiece from another dimension.
This is not to say that Slashdot is void of intellectual content. On the contrary, you'll find quite a bit of interesting information in the Science and Developer sections. You will find *no* intellectual content in the YRO section.
It's a travesty that a good idea like Slashdot, allowing users to create their own content, has succumbed to the mindless pursuit of mental masturbation of FSF zealots.
So while this may be the end of your Slashdot infancy, I think you will find your maturation into a Slashdot provocateur quite fulfilling and fun. Isn't that why you joined the technology revolution in the first place?
I think that we should all buy a Simputer -- or maybe even two! -- and plug it into the Internet as soon as possible. It comes with much helpful Open Source software, such as BombRecorder, a program that American nuclear weapon workers can use to store information about American bombs! And it can synchronize with other Simputers using the power of the Internet! (Note that it is completely secure, because it is Open Source!) So I think that especially Americans who work for top secret military installations should purchase a Simputer.
And that is not all! As it says on the article page, Simputer also supports voice recognition technology! It requires broadband, though, because the microphone data is transferred to Simputer's voice recognition servers (located in Pakistan). This client-server model ensures that your data is secure, because it uses Open Source software, which never has bugs.
So go buy a Simputer today! And if you have a brother or perhaps a cousin who works for American intelligence agencies, he would probably appreciate a Simputer, which comes with advanced scheduling software such as ScheduleSpy, to help the federal employee manage his busy schedule! That is awesome, yes? It is phat! Wow!
Osama bin^H^H^HJones
----
Praise be to Allah!
Read interface a loooong time ago...it's pretty good, but has the problem that many Stephenson books have (esp the Diamond Age) - whole chunks of plot feel like they're missing...
Great paperback, tho.
--- On the other hand, you have five fingers.
While I admire cnet for removing kazaa, it's not all that relevent. Here on my college campus(it's a school devoted to only sci/eng majors), most people didn't care about brilliant, much less know what a trojan was. John Q. Public needs more education before this will really be stopped.
Loki was not killed by a market not willing to buy their goods, though that did have some small contribution. It was killed by the absolute criminal incompitence of it's president.
I feel sorry for the people who Loki owes money to. I feel no pity at all for Loki.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
If you go to the member companies page on the openal site: Here
It lists Creative Labs and Loki Entertainment Software.
My guess is that Creative Labs will maintain this.
They have been good with opensource in the past
I know I'm going to hell, I'm just trying to get good seats.
...is what the official Cnet policy will be. Does this mean that Cnet will remove all programs with known spyware? Does this represent a shift in large corporations towards the anti-spyware movement? I shall wait and see...
"""The deposition took on a surreal air at times, with Draeker refusing to say whether or not he is a lawyer and in one spectacular moment testifying that as president of Loki he could say how much had been paid to Scott Draeker and when, but as Scott Draeker he could not say whether he actually received the money."""
It's probably misspelled -- "czar" in Russian starts with . The proper English transliteration of the Russian word is "tsar," but the English word meaning "Russian king" is spelled "czar" due to its New Latin roots.
I wonder who would win...
It's a shame what happend to the good geeks working at Loki. To think...if the company had just been run by people who knew what they were doing, maybe we'd have CounterStrike or JediKnight II to play with right now!
Good programmers don't mean enough when you don't have good managers running the business aspect of a company.
[insert lawyer joke here]
That Loki guy's norwegian ....
Barry Lewis kept promising checks, but never paid. I heard from one person, that he used stock to pay the rent for his apartment. When I told him, he would get the source code for what I worked on, he then tried extortion and harassment. Not only did his extortion and harassment fail, but he was convicted of two counts last month. The district attorney handling the case wanted the judge to include anger management to his sentence because he had threatened the district attorney.
Fight Spammers!
I submitted the story about the Simputer on August 21 of last year! How about some belated karma points? :)
Steve Magruder, Metro Foodist
Nobody is going to wait for a company to port games over to Linux if they can boot up Windows on the same box. If Loki perhaps pursued licencing good games exclusively for Linux... then they would probably have had a better chance.
Said one, "All we lost was money. Scott lost his friends."
... Scott should lose his right to be with us anymore. He should be in prison, based on that story.
The whole Loki thing is really sad. I guess all I have to say now is thank you to the Loki programers, it was you who made the company run (financially too by the looks of it :). And I get alot of enjoyment out of playing the games you ported. Thanks.
I don't own any portables and am not really interested... I'd rather just have a decent laptop. But I would buy one of these.
perlgolf: the only place where shorter is better
I don't mind the size of the ad, or that its in the middle of everything. I do find the fact that its on top of the text and preventing me from reading it quite annoying though.
I love Kimmy!
sigh
please mod down parent
My only concern with giFT is with the age of the current build, which, if the Download page is to be believed, was completed on January 1, 1900. Nostalgic computing is great and all, but...
This resulted in the sale of 7,487 units [of Civilization: Call to Power]; Loki sold about 1,500 others itself.
:)
I bought one of the 9000 copies of Civ:CTP that were sold. I feel like I'm part of an elite group!
But he did.
His name is now written in Linux history as a jerk, a PHB, an Enronish manager. Any tech aware of his past deeds will prefer working for Taco Bell or even Microsoft.
In this sense, he is no longer with "us".
The web site gave every stat except for how large the thing is.
It does look good.
I picked up a copy of the Linux port for $5. Good times. It plays pretty smoothly on my celeron 400Mhz.
The Open Source page that you link to has the CVS access info and it seems they're hosting it for now. What's cool is that it seems they're working with the community to make full-function Audigy drivers for Linux.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Sperm.
MEEPT!!
Somewhat offtopic:
Does anyone know where to get some of the games that Loki ported? I've looked for them but can't seem to find them.
The Anti-Blog
I had not read the bit on CNet about the distributed computing system that was being included with KaZaA until today. I find this interesting since the reason I switched from KaZaA to BearShare several weeks ago was because my whole computer became sluggish the moment I started KaZaA up, and 1ghz Thuderbirds aren't supposed to be sluggish. I don't know if this is what caused it, but I'm glad I stopped using it when I did nevertheless.
"I just want to thank my coach Eric a.k.a. Disco for shattering my reality..."
perhaps another failing - other than scott - is that MOST linux users still think that free software means you don't have to pay money and would pirate loki games on the principle that everything should be free.
they would probably have doubled their sales if it wasn't for the users.
not that it would have helped loki, but I think that if someone else were to consider doing something similar to loki, they'd seriously have to think about it. their target audience don't like paying money, or are running their OS because they simply don't have the money.
linux users need to get out of that mentality for their own computing future to be fruitful.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Let's say they were charging $50/copy and they sold 5000 copies (which seemed to be a reasonable expectation given what the report said). At that price and volume, that's $250,000 per title.
Now, figure that each title is going to take 3 or 4 developers. Let's say that each is paid $96K/year (for math simplicity) in salary and benefits, that would come down to approximately $8000/month per employee or roughly $32,000/month for each team. My numbers are totally coming out of thin air, but not unreasonable. At that burn rate you can afford to spend 7 months in development of each game with some room for some sort of profit.
Of course that base price isn't accounting for a lot of the company infrastructure. You have to afford a place to work, computers, a network connection, marketing, packaging, etc. You'll need an office manager, somebody to run the website, and a couple other odds and ends. So probably, in the grand scheme of things, you're talking at least $50K/month burn rate. As you develop more games, the overhead is probably reduced somewhat but this is a reasonable baseline.
So now, suddenly you are down to 5 months of development time. Ohhhh wait, you forgot to license that game, didn't you? Well that's going to shave a few bucks off each copy of the game, and now suddenly you are in the red assuming that you can get the game ported from start to finish in 5 months.
My numbers aren't necessarily realistic, but I think they are close enough to reality to illustrate that this is, at best, a razor thin business to be in.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
LinuxMall
TuxGames
As a side note, did anyone else catch this in the article on Loki?
I don't know about you, but I'll be keeping my eye out for the liquidation company that will be selling these tins--I'll be happy to pick up a few games cheap. Amazon.com has the Quake 3 tin for $10, but its currently "unavailable".
Its strikes me as kind of funny that his novel is wiated for with the same anticipation as gnome 2.0 and kde 3.0. It's not software guys. Its a hardback. Two different animals.
-
Come on, that was funny
Sheep moderators who blindly follow the pack SUCK!
My celeron 433 isn't affected one bit by my running Kazaa.. methinks you may have a deeper problem.
Having said that, I long ago switched to Kazaalite. It loads about a million times faster (no ads) and of course, has no spyware or hidden p2p network.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
Uh, maybe that's why it's called "slashback", 'cause it's updating previous stories?
The original rumor of the Quicksilver release date was entirely based on the amazon.co.uk site's date. When the initial slashdot story came out, I looked all over the net for some sort of corroborating evidence and found none -- everything traces back to amazon UK. Then, as March 7 2002 actually approached, suddenly the date jumped by a year -- kind of suspicious. I can still find no indication that this is anything but a placeholder. So don't hold your breath. (But on the other hand, perhaps it will actually come out sooner -- you never know!)
1. Try to think of something original to post. 2. ??????????????? 3. Post this.
Another alternative is using a dummy dll which acts like the Cydoor dll. Although I don't know if Cydoor is the problem in this case, but if you're using Kazaa (or other Cydoor-loaded software) this is an easy way to disable it by tricking Kazaa into thinking its running Cydoor.
but lets be careful here.
there are programs that spy on you (Real anything)
there are programs that fill your bandwidth with ads (cydoor, et al)
and there are sneaky programs that install without you knowing them (all of the above, BDE)
I think the beef CNet has with BDE and KAZAA is the stealth install trojan-ness of the whole thing.
I bet if I put up a program called ISpy and disclosed that it would report anything it could about your computer to me at my computer, they would leave it up there. But if I secretly installed said program while installing some other useful program they would call it a trojan and rip it off.
Even if you have a EULA for BDE included in the KAZAA EULA, BDE is a trojan to 99.9% of the windows population. Here's another summary for removing KazaA all the way
Ok, a failed lawyer, starting a Linux game company. Sounds suspiciously like an opportunist with no relevant experience and dollar signs in his eyes. Did he at least have some technical background? Experience in the (brutal) gaming industry? Familiarity with Linux? You'd think the article would have mentioned it (working at Apple does not imply a technical background).
If anyone ever gives you this vibe, get out, quick. The best of plans, in the best of circumstances, executed by the best of people is a long way from a sure thing in the free market. Optimism and confidence are good, but counting on success--even just in your heart--before it's in the bank is always a mistake. This lesson, it seems, will be learned over and over until the end of time.
You're only supposed to get unemployment benefits if you're looking for work. So Draker was dishonest from the start.
My company was financed in 1999, so I recall distinctly that the boom was in full swing the whole year. (Hint: when did VA Linux IPO?) If they couldn't find funding in 1999, something was very wrong.
I'm going to stop, because the later signs are too obvious, and because if the signs were all there at the height of the bubble--well that's just pathetic.
Reading this, I couldn't help being reminded of the movie startup.com. Somehow, you were supposed to feel sorry for these losers, even though they aspired to nothing more noble than easy riches, and pursued them with laughably poor judgement. I can't fairly blame them for dipping into the overflowing VC pool, but I certainly didn't cry for their failure.
Maybe my standards for entrepreneurs are too high. Maybe it's because I've been with a tech start-up that I was and am proud of (founded in 1998, and still going, thank you).
The evaluation of an action as 'practical' . . . depends on what it is that one wishes to practice.
The only thing this seems to be missing (and its a very significant omission IMO) is a compactflash slot. If it had one like for example the Cassiopeia does, you could put one of them 1GB IBM Microdrives in it. Enough for a fairly functional Linux distribution good enough to do development on whenever the mood takes you, wherever you happen to be. This machine isn't going to let you do that more's the pity.
When I had orignally read that article about the Brilliant Digital (BDE) Trojan being silently distributed in Kazaa, I laughed and became glad that I had never installed Kazaa.
e xe , 4d ata 2.dll,44m 32\bdedown loader.dll,44s ystem32\bdefdi. dll,442 \bdeinst a2.dll,44b 3d,,i ,,
D eleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,b3dini_auto_f ile,,a yer.bde playerctrl,,2 ,bdeplayer.bde playerctrl.1,,T ,2,bdesmartinsta ller.bdesmartinstaller,,L ASSES_ROOT,2,bdesmartinsta ller.bdesmartinstaller.1,,_ CLASSES_ROOT,2,clsid\{519581 69-d5e3-11d1-aa42-0000e842e40a},,, 1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,clsid\{679251 65-c4b6-11d2-b9c6-0000e84f59a6},,, 1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,interface\{67 925164-c4b6-11d2-b9c6-0000e84f59a6},,t her,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,s3d_auto_file , b ri lliant digital entertainment,,O T,2,typelib\{82fc 7881-aacc-11d2-b9c6-0000e842e40a},,
But what's this? There's a new Ad-Aware? I download it and run it. It finds 19 new components. Guess what, the BDE Trojan is installed on my machine. How? I have no idea. I never downloaded installed Kazaa and nobody else uses this machine. And I almost never browse with IE so ActiveX couldn't have let it in.
The only conclusion I can come to is that BDE software is being distributed with applications besides Kazaa. The only newly downloaded (Windows) software I have installed recently are Ad-aware and WinAMP and honestly I think they are unlikely suspects. The date on the BDE files was JAN 12 2002!!! That was 3 months before the original slashdot article!
How did the Brilliant Digital Trojan get onto my computer?
Log:
Started file scan
Other file:D:\WINNT\bde\bdeclean.exe
FileSize : 32 kb
FileCreation time : 12/01/2002 17:08:06
Last accessed : 09/04/2002 22:32:07
Build : 3.0.7.0
OS : Win32 executable
Description:BDEClean
Version:3, 0, 7, 0
ProductName:Brilliant Digital uninstaller
Other file:D:\WINNT\system32\bdedata2.dll
FileSize : 36 kb
FileCreation time : 12/01/2002 17:03:51
Last accessed : 09/04/2002 22:32:09
Build : 1.0.1.9
OS : No executable
Description:BDEData (Release)
Version:1, 0, 1, 9
ProductName:BDEData Module
Other file:D:\WINNT\system32\bdedownloader.dll
FileSize : 88 kb
FileCreation time : 12/01/2002 17:03:51
Last accessed : 09/04/2002 22:32:09
Build : 3.0.38.0
OS : No executable
Description:BDEDownloader
Version:3, 0, 38, 0
ProductName:Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc. BDEDownloader
Other file:D:\WINNT\system32\bdefdi.dll
FileSize : 40 kb
FileCreation time : 12/01/2002 17:03:51
Last accessed : 09/04/2002 22:32:09
Build : 1.0.0.7
OS : No executable
Description:BDEFdiTest
Version:1, 0, 0, 7
ProductName:Brilliant Digital Entertainment Inc. BDEFdiTest
Other file:D:\WINNT\system32\bdeinsta2.dll
FileSize : 97 kb
FileCreation time : 12/01/2002 17:03:51
Last accessed : 09/04/2002 22:32:09
Build : 1.2.3.9
OS : No executable
Description:BDESmartInstaller (Release)
Version:1, 2, 3, 9
ProductName:BDEInstallerComponent Module
Removing selected components:
Deleting:Other,3,file,2,,D:\WINNT\bde\bdeclean.
Deleting:Other,3,file,2,,D:\WINNT\system32\bde
Deleting:Other,3,file,2,,D:\WINNT\syste
Deleting:Other,3,file,2,,D:\WINNT\
Deleting:Other,3,file,2,,D:\WINNT\system3
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,.
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,.b3din
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,.s3d,,
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,2,bdepl
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT,
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_ROO
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_C
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY
Deleting:Other
Deleting:Other
Deleting:O
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,2,software\
Deleting:Other,1,HKEY_CLASSES_RO
Linux rules
http://www.geocities.com/individualistanarchist/
The reason for this date should be obvious to many a Stephenson fan - he's probably working on the ending. Sure he's an excellent author and his books represent some of the best cyberpunk out there, but the man couldn't finish a book to save his life.
--jobby
I installed 'b3d Projector' as a part of 'b3d Exporter for Maya'. The latter would seem a legitimate software to install, and including the Projector would make sense to preview the exported work. However, how do I know if this intentionnal package (not hidden) also includes the functionalities of their 'Brilliant Network'?
(Do understand me, it did not get installed without my knowledge. But my intent was to gain the ability to export Maya work for playback or viewing using their 'Projector' player, not chip in for the new 'Brilliant Internet'.)
Read what KaZaA has to say about your privacy:
http://www.kazaa.com/en/privacy/index.htm
and then answer my subject line. Their own website states that "spyware is any software (that) employs a user's Internet connection in the background (the so-called 'backchannel') without their knowledge or explicit permission." They also state that:
"The service downloads a collection of banner ads from a web server while you are online. As you use the KMD, the service rotates ads and intermittently polls the server for new ad collections. Statistics are sent to the webserver recording which ads were displayed and how often. This information is used to bill advertisers. It may also be used to target ads for you. For example, if you often click CD store ads, you will be shown more of these than pet store ads."
I don't remember giving them "explicit permission" to do all that. I know this is preaching to the choir, but I am stunned by the obvious contradictions on their website... Thank you to the above comment poster who pointed me to KaZaA Lite. I had not heard of it previous.
"Now gluttony and exploitation serves eight!" - TV's Frank
I wonder how hard it would be to have teams of programmers working in a sort of 'mercenary' game production...
It seems that many of the best games were originally created by a lone couple of guys in their parents' basements. Someone makes a great game with a good idea, and that idea gets copied by everyone else after the commercial succes of the first of its kind.
I think what we need is more of these rogue 'do it yourselfers' that a company could license distribution rights from... that way, the best ideas keep coming and everyone can get paid.
There would have to be some sort of clearing house for these guys that would also serve as a broker for companies looking for the Next Big Thing (tm).
I dunno, jes a thought.
You are all fartheads.
ASM Elections and Austin Evans
The choice for Letters & Science candidate
Beginning Monday morning, all UW-Madison students are now able to vote for their student leaders in ASM elections. As a Letters & Science undergraduate, you have the opportunity to elect representatives to represent around 19,000 students here on campus.
Austin Evans, a Letters & Science candidate, is a student with leadership, ability and experience. This past year, he has worked hard to protect student power, raise financial aid and represent the UW-Madison students on a national level. With your seven votes this week, you can help Austin carry-on his work into next year.
To vote, all you have to do is click and visit http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~ajevans/ and click on the voting link. You'll need your student ID# and PIN in order to vote. You can vote a total of seven times, but all seven of those can be for Austin Evans. Voting began Monday and lasts until Thursday night.
If you want more information about Austin's campaign, please visit http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~ajevans/. Thank you for your time, and don't forget to vote this week!
Austin Evans for ASM L&S
ASM's Present for ASM's future
Austin Evans [mailto:ajevans@students.wisc.edu]
I hope you guys vote for me. I am so cool.
The real news is that Monolinux is reporting that Mozilla 1.0RC1 is close at hand, with the branching of the 1.0 branch!
Everyone's talking about removing the brilliant projector program, but this is an old flash-like 3d player for your browser! Are we sure that the altnet shared-processing software is in this projector executable?
I think somebody needs to work out how to *really* get rid of the new software *before* it gets turned on, and I have a feeling that the projector is the wrong target.
And that bastard took me weeks to read. I don't think pen makes it shorter.
Hollow words will burn and hollow men will burn.
...you're just one of the 9000 people who had Linux confused with a PlayStation. :P
Is it possible that the Kazaa/Fasttrack folk slipped it in via Morpheus before they made it incompatible?
Because, now that you mention it, I have it on my box too...and I've only used Morpheus.
-Jayde
What's a sig?
Heh--having read a bunch of Stephenson, I know what you mean. I have to say, however, that I thought Zodiac had a great ending. The Big U, which I just read, had a pretty solid ending, though overall it's not as great as his later works. Snow Crash and Cryptonomicon both ended way to abruptly. The very last line of Diamond Age was great, but other than that the last few chapters felt like they had been cut down by about 80% from the original draft.
C|Net may have removed Kazaa downloads, but their subsidiary ZDNet still has it available.
They include a link to the C|Net story which discusses the B3D spyware, so this is not just an oversight.
I was all ready to applaud C|Net's decision to pull Kazaa, but this makes me wonder.
I can't stand to write on paper. And if I did try to write something like that I'd have to spend more time trying to figure out what I wrote then the time it would take to write it :P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
It seems that the biggest problem Loki has was mismanagement. No good manager would be paying themselves $125k a year when noone else is getting paid. It should have been his responsibility to go with as little pay as possible to please employees, and hopefully get themselves out of the hole. Large salaries could come later. It seems to me he had no idea what he was doing or what he was getting into, and the fault lies largely in him.
The next largest problem is probably the confusion between open source and free software. It seems that a large number of Linux users do not know the difference. That, and why would you pay extra for a port of a game you allready owned? If that were the case, most people would install the linux version for free just because they had allready paid the original price. A better plan would have been to sell the ports to the companies, and let them sell, resell, or distribute them to existing costumers for a small fee. How about letting all the customers that 'register' their games know that if they want to use their product on linux, $5 is all it would cost them? Much better plan then trying to sell the games independantly.
A better business plan, and better management would have almost surely led this idea to success.
Encore's Software is launching a limited number of Evaluation pieces soon. To be a "Encore Simputer Beta-Evaluator" please contact for more details.
Hardware
CPU
Intel StrongARM SA1110, 32-bit RISC CPU @ 206 MHz
32 MB of DRAM
16 MB Flash for Permanent Storage
Display Interface
240x320 Monochrome LCD Display Panel
Input Device
Touch-panel Overlay on LCD Display
Used with a plastic stylus (Pen)
Audio Interface
Support for external speaker/headphone and microphone
SmartCard Interface
SmartCard Reader/Writer
Connectivity
Internal V.90 Modem
IrDA
Connectors
Speaker and MIC Jacks
SmartCard Connector
AC Adapter Input
IrDA Window
RJ-11 Telephone Jack
Serial Port
Power Supply
Three AAA-sized NiMh batteries with external charge Operates with external AC Adapter
Expansion
USB interface to external peripherals
Applications
Email Client
Browser
MP3 Player
Notepad
Smart Card Sample Application
Text-To-Speech Conversion
Calculator
Application Development Software Support
GNU/Linux ARM Cross-development Tool Chain on Linux PC
Linux Kernel and RAM Disk
X Windows Library
GTK Toolkit
Encore's Application Framework
Now all I need is some datas on the size...
I mean, pocket wise or not ?
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Let's make it a virus - let's hAcK virusdefs of Symantec's definitions to recognise Kazaa/Brilliant spyware/assholeware respectively as a DDoS virus. Is there any way to hAcK the virusdefs?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
"Brilliance" was a brand name of an illegal drug there.
It strikes me as even funnier that you make it sound like waiting for, and drooling over, the next release of some SOFTWARE is somehow more acceptable that doing it for a BOOK. Most people could care less when the new gnome or kde come out (Myself included).
If you do, the bde gets installed automatically. No wonder you got it on your system.
Workaround: put kazaa.com on the restricted sites list of IE
Sorry, you gave "explicit permission" for all of the above, including the BDE client as well when you clicked "agree" on the Kazaa Installer. Read it sometime, despite that it's several pages long and in a small scroller box.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Draeker. I hate to say it, but Draeker was fired from job as a lawyer, and demonstrated to the fullest extent that he doesn't know how to run a business. What a loser! Now, who is going to hire the guy? McDonalds?
Actually one of the concepts that a lot of entrepeneurs have been into is the notion of avoiding competition. Basically, you try to start businesses that are in new technologies, or provide services nobody else is providing. This way you don't have to compete in any real sense.
Also, competition doesn't necessarily force prices to the lowest that they can be. Many times companies compete using marketing and branding which allow them to operate at prices well beyond what are the bare minimum for survival. I mean, are Nike shoe really worth that much money?
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service