looking back it probably wasn't the best decision to use a company in this situation, basicially cause your not living at our job unlike in a residentual environment, where a landlord can not just flat out fire you.
Basicially the FCC says that consumers have the right to install and operate wireless access points. that means that they have a right to plug a wap into the UTD's network (since they live in this building hard wired for UTD access Im guessing) and UTD can't say a damn thing, and then the wardriver drives by...
I agree that the totally private networks they have no right to bully. Generally speaking if someone is using DSL or cable and then broadcasts wireless, UTD shouldn't be able to do a damn thing, but if the same Logic is applied to UTD's network and the unsecure apps have to stay plugged into their network, then thats what is scary.
Let me get this straght, If someone is an employee for a company, and he has a wireless laptop and wants to use it that way, and he buys a linksys and plugs it in out of the box without any security, the company cannot do anything about it and some wardriver can come around, hit it, hack the network and drive away.
Mcafee is starting to mark adware/spyware as viruses.
Great!
Now make an AV app that effectively removes them when it's detected.
Right now, not one virus scanner cleans adware/spyware effectively. You always need to use either spybot or adaware to get rid of it for good. The reason for this is simply because every antivirus firm uses scanning techniques dated from the DOS era to scan and remove this stuff.
If you work for symantec, or mcafee, or any other AV firm for that matter, pleast drill it in your AV scanning division that the Windows Registry Must be scanned for viruses/adware/spyware entries First then all the files on the system. Then once it's found, remove all traces of it including folders, leftover installer files and temp files. I've seen spyware and adware that is just about impossible to remove unless you scour the entire registry for any possible method of entry, then scour the drive for installers that will reinstall it if it's removed. That is why adaware and spybot are so effective at removing this stuff. it removes it from executing and gets it all on the next restart.
Lavasoft Ad-aware is better at removing even some common viruses than most virus scanners today. It's almost second nature that you have to get a "Virus Cleaner" to remove viruses for some AV scanners that adaware removes on the first try.
Until AV firms understand that the registry is just as important to scan as the files, they will never be effective in removing these threats. Dont think that Virus writers aren't looking at these techniques these spyware groups are using to get around you guys and aren't implementing these techniques in their next virus.
I noticed that some open source projects have Patent issues and it doesn't seem to hinder them.
MS has said that the patent exists primiarly to protect them from an Eolas, but would it be accpetable To OSS if MS went through a similar route that Theora has gone and granted an irrevociable royalty free licence to any open source implemantation that requests it?
To tell you the Truth, I'm registered Democrat. I dont know why though. I should change to independant.
I'll make your day right now and say I tend to think moderate conservitave. I dont agree with everything coming out of the Republicans, and frankly, no one should agree with everything coming out of one political party, unless you like being one of the lemmings falling off either the left or right side of the cliff.
in 96, I voted Clinton, Because Dole was a dead horse.
In 2000 I voted bush because Bush Sucked, but Gore sucked more than Bush.
in 2004, So far, I'm voting Bush because Bush still sucks but all I'm getting out of Kerry is "I'm a Vietnam Vet and I hate Bush". Maybe when the debates come out and issues are brought to the table I'll change my mind but so far I'm not convinced Kerry will do any better than Bush.
If Gore won in 2000 and was running against Kerry, I would vote Gore. Gore was much better than Kerry. why he didn't run again I'll never know, cause he would have had no problem winning this one.
Politics aside, this isnt a Liberal or Conservative issue, This is a Media issue. This contry has the freedom of press for a reason. It's a check and balence in case we needed to overthrow this govenrment over. The Founding fathers wanted the People to have ultimate control over the fate of their own government, and they saw the media as in improtant tool to get the truth out. And that's where my problem is.
Truth is truth pure and simple. Propaganda is opinion presented as truth. Propaganda has no place in the media, and if it does, then we're in deep trouble as a country.
So what if it's leftist? Do you expect every reporting channel to be neutral?
No. I expect it to be factual. Not full of assumption. Fact is Fact. Pure and simple. Fact cannot be twisted to some adjenda and is simple pure and unquestionable. Assumption is the exact opposite. A perfect example of this is #24, which basicially states that since Bush is filling up recruit positions ("read: Draft Positions") that he MUST be going to reinstate the draft. It also reports about a bill to require 18-26 year old's into the military, but It doesn't say the outcome which would surely be it was voted down. This stuff appears in congress constantly and it voted down constantly. If it passed or if the draft was reinstated the news media would be all over it like Vietnam II just broke out, and everyone in congress as well as the presidency would be looking for new jobs in 2-6 years. And they know it.
Michael Moore is another example of this. you might want to Read this. It basicially lays down every untruth in Farenheit 911. Moore made some interesting points in that movie, but he also brought up a ton of stuff that he presented as fact that is totally unproveable or outright false.
It's a two way street too. The right does the same thing as the left when it comes to this. they bashed Cliton left and right and a lot of what they said was the same Propagandist Bull. But you never seen the media report on it either, because they knew that it was Propagandist Bull. Those stories must of made the 96-99 Censored list.
Both sides would never agree on the extreme end. it's like getting two magnets identical poles to stay together. the point is to pick a middle groud where your confortable. Simply put, if you want to go after Bush fine. There's a ton of stuff you can get him with that is totally true, undenyable and damaging. Dragging this crap out of the woodwork and presenting it as pure fact just discredit your main issue: that Bush is doing a bad job.
Left Leaning is not even the word for this, For those of you that don't want to read all the articles, let me sum it up for you:
1) I Hate Corporate America 2) I Hate Ashcroft 3) I Hate Bush 4) I Hate the U.S. Military 5) I Hate Big Oil 6) I Hate Corporate America 7) I Hate Bush 8) I Hate Big Oil 9) I Hate Bush 10) I Hate Corporate America and Bush 11) I Hate Fox News 12) I Hate the U.S. Military and Bush 13) I Hate Corporate America 14) I Hate Conservatives in General 15) I Hate the U.S. Military 16) I Hate Ashcroft 17) I Hate Corporate America 18) I Hate Big Oil 19) I Hate Corporate America 20) I Hate Big Oil 21) I Hate Corporate America 22) I Hate the U.S. Military 23) I Hate Corporate America 24) I Hate the U.S. Military 25) I Hate Corporate America
I dont see one article in general that even hints at a Democrat. Just about everyone of these things targets the Republicians in one form of another.
I'm no big fan of Bush, but geez! This isn't Jornalism, it's Propaganda. This is about as believable as Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingram Teaming up to do at 25 Top Censored Media list.
there was a ton of changes done all across the board and under the hood, but most of the ones you see are to prevent social problems.
Microsoft as well as Apple and other companies understand more about the average computer user than most other software companies, especially when it comes to these particular rules:
1) 99% of computer users do not know what they are doing 2) People do not read unless they absoletly have to. 3) You must create all user interfaces under the presence of monkey. In other words, if you cant train a monkey to use it then your wasting your time.
The Security center for example, covers all three of these, it basically forces you to read it by prompting non stop, it's easy enough to train a monkey against and even a moron can understand that a big red blinking X covered shield means bad.
Sp2 also brings these concepts to the activeX realm. Spyware becomes almost impossible to install through IE using them most common methods used today. basicially you load a spyware infested page, it then drops down the "oh no this page is downloading activeX" box, forces you to click on it and say download it, Reloads the page again which screws most browser hijacking from occuring because most hijackers don't reload in a browser refresh, then promps you again to make sure you really want to do this.
They know they don't want people downloading this stuff, so they first force you to pay attention and read, then they actually break the #3 rule to purposely make it hard for John Q moron to install the scumware unless he absoletly needs it to survive.
It also has to be noted that the firewall and automatic patching is ON and encouraged to be ON by the security center. regardless of what you think of the firewall it basically stealth's you from the net and it's better than wide open anyday, and if everyone was patching automatically we wouldn't have had half of the infected blaster and sasser systems out there.
SP2 has flaws, basicially a complex virus could easily turn off the firewall, spoof the security center and go insane, but they did some under the hood things to deter rapid spreading and frankly I dont care which operating system your running, If a virus has root, or administrator or whatever is the highest access given by your favorite OS, Your Screwed because it will disable any protection you may have had and hapilly make you and your Net neighbor's life a living hell.
The stupid thing about these things is that most of the anti-piracy methods actually cause MORE Piracy than they prevent.
Think about it. Drive Virtualization wouldn't be so mainstream if you didn't need to stick the Game CD in the drive every time you want to play it, which is a PITA, and Game Backups wouldn't be needed for just about the same reason.
The Best Anti-Piracy Measure would be an activation/account one. Basicially like what Valve does with steam but more secure. You actively have an online account with the game developer and you can tie your games to it with a one time entered CD KEY, and it tracks your progress, games you bought from them, overall stats, etc to add vaule to the service. If you have to reinstall the game, it simply asks for your id and password and it lets you play without stupid disk swapping, or asking for the CD Key Again.
It's already been proven that Protecting the CD is an absolute waste of time, and disk swapping pisses everyone off, so whats the point of continuing to do these if there are better ways out there to reduce the piracy footprint?
Nvidia Soundstorm. The Audio solution that comes with the Nforce2 MCP-T. And it's a Nvidia Product, So ID Getting full support From Nvidia would be easy as Pie since both companies like each other so much.
There's also VIA's Vinyl Audio Solution, as well as Analog Devices Soundmax.
I'm pretty much ready to upgrade my card from a 64mb ti4200 to a 6800gt.
My problem is that I would have liked to see someone at HardOCP test the BFG 6800GT card on doom3. Carmack's overclocking warning got me a little worried that the BFG card may give me trouble since it's overclocked out of the box.
If it could give me problems, I might just buy the EVGA card and overclock it myself.
Well, now I got a singing plant. All I need now are mini plant sunglasses and someone to invent a device to make a plant dance and I'm all set.
Re:Changed the view of the US?
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Bobby Fischer Found
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· Score: 4, Insightful
In the case of Bill Gates, most of his wealth is tied to the stock market, where he heavily invests. That's why he lost a ton of his wealth when the stock market blew up in 2000.
If he did get some sort of tax cut, it is safe to say that most of it would be invested. Since it's being invested, whatever company he invests in, and not necessiarly Microsoft mind you, would get a benefit and they would be creating the jobs.
It drives me nuts that people actually believe that the rich are all like "Scrooge Mc'Duck" and have a huge 5 story safe where they put all the money in. That may be true for some rich eccentrics, but most wealthy entrepreneurs tend to invest a majority of their wealth in the stock market for the long term.
Well. This has a potential of being original. Let's run this through the Five Scripts of Star Trek and see what happens.
1) "Aww! It's a totally new, cute little space alien!! Wook at the cute wittle space alien! Let me pet it and stroke it and help it and dont screw up the Primary Directive and.... - Hmm. Romulans would be new to them so it uses Script #1 2) "Oh no! It's a Rift!! Quick! get the "How to use the Deflector to fix a rip in the space-time continuium" manual and fix it before it destroys the universe! It's under the "What to do when the Holodeck Goes self aware and traps the crew" manual! -Definetly doesn't sound like a rift is involved. 3) "Oops! We Traveled Through Time!! Lets get out of here before we screw up histo...Wait a Second, WE ALREADY SCREWED IT UP! OH NO! WE GOT TO FIX IT!! - doesn't sound like time travel is involved. 4) "Oh My god! This guy is Nuts!! We have to stop him at all costs! That means you die, and you die, and you die, in fact the whole ship is gonna probably be destroyed! Hmm. I always wanted a new ship. Boy I love that new ship smell! Hope you live to smell it with me! - Definetly getting a Khaaan!!! vibe from the title. looks like a lot of red shirts are going to ignite. So it least sound like it has to potential to use Script #4 5) "Holy Crap! The Holodeck is trapping the crew!! We got to Get them out of the.. Wait a second. WE'RE IN THE HOLODECK! OH NO! WE GOT TO GET OUT BEFORE ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!! - Since Holodecks wouldn't have been invented yet, its a safe bet that this won't be used.
On Second though, it sounds like the same old crap. War is a nice touch though.
The Point.
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GPS on Mars?
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· Score: 4, Insightful
Honestly, I dont see much of a need for GPS on mars. It's not like we need a precise 10 meter point of exactly where a rover is. As long as the rover sees where it's at it's pretty much what we want out of it.
I can see a use for a DSN (Deep Space network) to consolidate mars radio traffic into one higher powered more redundant network, but GPS would be a pain to make work on mars. This is especially true with the amount of satelites needed, not to mention there would have to be a way to sync all of their internal clocks to give a precise reading which would be tough from an hour away.
according to the GSN show, they did know it was not a good random pattern way before Mike Larson. In fact, CBS producers were genuinely concerned that the pattern wasn't random enough. They just never figured that anyone would figure it out before they updated the system.
The board had two major problems. 1) The technology available to them was very limited in scope. It had limits on how many and how big the random patterns could be. Although I dont see why they couldn't design a system to be completely random, for some reason that I can't remember it had to be psudorandom. 2) The screen values were not random enough. Idelally, it would have been perfect to have a whammy on every possible value and have that run a totally random pattern. at that time however, they didn't cover the entire board. There were many that didn't ever show a whammy and Mike picked two of them that were easy to track the pattern to. And one of them happened to be big bucks.
Once Mike walked all over the board, both of these things were changed. there were more whammys and much more random patterns.
-Michael Larson at the time was unemployed. He became obsessed with game shows thinking that he could get on one and outsmart the system to win on it. -He starting watching Press your luck and realized that the pattern was psudorandom and completely reversed engenerred the Random pattern, and even perfected a button pressing method to be as precise as possible -Mike applied to be a contestant on Press your luck, and eventually got the green light to get on. CBS Producers commented that his demeanor was different from other contestants and they were suspicious of him, but couldn't find anything wrong so he got the go ahead. -Once on the show, In the beginning, he acted just like any other contestant, and went through the question and answer session pretty unenentfully. -the spin round, was where it got interesting. The First thing Mike did was get a whammy. It's believed that he did it on purpose to get a feel of the button to the board interaction and also not to look like he was blantently hacking the board. -after the first whammy, it was all big bucks from there. he would almost always either hit big bucks or another space on the "wheel" that he knew would never popup a whammy. The whole time doing it he was in some sort of trancelike state. -The second Q&A Session goes underway, already he's won a good amount of money but CBS hasn't seen anything yet. CBS Producers are going nuts in the back, more than aware that he's got the system beat from his first round performance. Peter Tomarken is basicially shocked at this point. -Second round comes around. Mike basicially spins and never stops, collecting even more spins and more money. it gets to the point that Peter is beyond stunned now and doesn't know how to react to this, CBS is going insane in the back, and the episode is running way out of bounds for it's time. -Mike breaks the $100,000 barrier. at this point he's won more money than was not only thought possible, but has broke the daytime money winnings record. -finally, he gets frightened that he's going to screw up and get a whammy, so he passes the spins. -eventually, some spins he has to take get passed to him. Wins Even more money. until basicially all the spins are gone. -in the end, CBS "retired" him as champion, and originally would not pay him for cheating. eventually they paid him when their lawyers advised thm that they would lose because their wheel was too predictive. They aired te show as a two day show, because it was so long, they increased the patterns, and added more whammy slots where there originally were none.
I would like to say that Valve does a good job stopping cheats, but as it stands right now, it's a joke.
I'm the head admin of the "[SmD]Anarchy Server". just about daily we have to deal with cheats. Lots of them. In fact, at this point in time, we are catching about 3-5 script hacks a day using HLGuard, and thats not counting the aimbots, wallhacks and the like.
The big problem with this is the way that Valve handles cheats. The first thing that you will learn as a CS server admin is VAC is basicially useless and will not stop cheats. I wish that Valve would just bite the bullet and give the entire VAC system to Punkbuster, pay them, and let them handle it, but since that will never happen we have to deal with third party apps that either work some of the time, or require a third party client to be run before you play CS that will cause problems, a drop in the playerbase and will not necessiarly stop the cheaters.
I do know that when VAC is updated, it works, the problem is that Valve will basicially declare a "Cheat Free Month" as I call it and for one month update the thing almost daily, then after the "Cheat Free Month" is over they will do nothing for two to three months and let cheats run rampant. Currently it's been over a month since they last updated it. Meanwhile, punkbuster updates almost daily, and keeps most of the games it protects cheat free, and UT2k4 is cheat free by design as well as their updated in house Cheat system that works.
Unless they decide that VAC is what they should be focusing on, and hire a dedicated staff of people that will update VAC daily, there will be cheats on both HL and HL2 based games and the situation will never improve. This is especially true when I've already seen HL2 beta in action (IE: the actual game, not Videos) at one of our LAN parties and that there are cheats already for the beta code that work.
Sadly enough, it seems that the ideal Best Buy employee is somewhere around the personality level of your average person after a night of drinking with no stop in dreamland.
Funny. I always though the Ideal Best Buy Employee was a tall guy in a plaid leisure suit with big teeth that couldn't stop saying "Hey!" all day.
Referring back to the parent post. I used to work for a small Computer Repair shop. The Bust Buy techs from our local Bust Buy used to really piss me off. We used to get people that would bring in some of the most screwed up stuff man has ever seen, and the response From Bust Buy was always "Format and Reinstall" Regardless of the problem. I Understand that F&R is the way to go for over half of major software malfunctions, but when the hard drive is Clicking of Death, and the power supply is shutting off the computer every 15 mins, or the RAM is producing memory errors, it's a good bet that a F&R isn't going to fix the problem.
After Blaster I said Screw that and built an Software Update Server on our network here. All I had to do was forcibly sync it, approve the update and away it goes.
All I have to do is wait, and check the logs (using suslogvewer) on monday to make sure that they updated.
On my work machine I'm testing SP2 and it definetly is a lot better in handling popups and hijackers pretty well. no more "do you wish to install and run "X" stuff anymore, it just comes up in a bar that you have to foribly click on and affirm that you want to really install this.
I haven't tried it against the exploit, but most people have been saying that it fixes the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe that was the point I was trying to make dumb ass.
looking back it probably wasn't the best decision to use a company in this situation, basicially cause your not living at our job unlike in a residentual environment, where a landlord can not just flat out fire you.
Basicially the FCC says that consumers have the right to install and operate wireless access points. that means that they have a right to plug a wap into the UTD's network (since they live in this building hard wired for UTD access Im guessing) and UTD can't say a damn thing, and then the wardriver drives by...
I agree that the totally private networks they have no right to bully. Generally speaking if someone is using DSL or cable and then broadcasts wireless, UTD shouldn't be able to do a damn thing, but if the same Logic is applied to UTD's network and the unsecure apps have to stay plugged into their network, then thats what is scary.
If you would have read the UTD Policy, it says and I Quote
No 802.11b or 802.11g wireless access points may be installed within the Waterview Apartments by residents.
that means ALL Private WAPs (IE: ANY point not owned by UTD, whether connected to UTD'S network or not) were banned.
Who's the dumb fuck thats not reading now?
Let me get this straght, If someone is an employee for a company, and he has a wireless laptop and wants to use it that way, and he buys a linksys and plugs it in out of the box without any security, the company cannot do anything about it and some wardriver can come around, hit it, hack the network and drive away.
I don't know about you but it sounds scary to me.
Mcafee is starting to mark adware/spyware as viruses.
Great!
Now make an AV app that effectively removes them when it's detected.
Right now, not one virus scanner cleans adware/spyware effectively. You always need to use either spybot or adaware to get rid of it for good. The reason for this is simply because every antivirus firm uses scanning techniques dated from the DOS era to scan and remove this stuff.
If you work for symantec, or mcafee, or any other AV firm for that matter, pleast drill it in your AV scanning division that the Windows Registry Must be scanned for viruses/adware/spyware entries First then all the files on the system. Then once it's found, remove all traces of it including folders, leftover installer files and temp files. I've seen spyware and adware that is just about impossible to remove unless you scour the entire registry for any possible method of entry, then scour the drive for installers that will reinstall it if it's removed. That is why adaware and spybot are so effective at removing this stuff. it removes it from executing and gets it all on the next restart.
Lavasoft Ad-aware is better at removing even some common viruses than most virus scanners today. It's almost second nature that you have to get a "Virus Cleaner" to remove viruses for some AV scanners that adaware removes on the first try.
Until AV firms understand that the registry is just as important to scan as the files, they will never be effective in removing these threats. Dont think that Virus writers aren't looking at these techniques these spyware groups are using to get around you guys and aren't implementing these techniques in their next virus.
I noticed that some open source projects have Patent issues and it doesn't seem to hinder them.
MS has said that the patent exists primiarly to protect them from an Eolas, but would it be accpetable To OSS if MS went through a similar route that Theora has gone and granted an irrevociable royalty free licence to any open source implemantation that requests it?
To tell you the Truth, I'm registered Democrat. I dont know why though. I should change to independant.
I'll make your day right now and say I tend to think moderate conservitave. I dont agree with everything coming out of the Republicans, and frankly, no one should agree with everything coming out of one political party, unless you like being one of the lemmings falling off either the left or right side of the cliff.
in 96, I voted Clinton, Because Dole was a dead horse.
In 2000 I voted bush because Bush Sucked, but Gore sucked more than Bush.
in 2004, So far, I'm voting Bush because Bush still sucks but all I'm getting out of Kerry is "I'm a Vietnam Vet and I hate Bush". Maybe when the debates come out and issues are brought to the table I'll change my mind but so far I'm not convinced Kerry will do any better than Bush.
If Gore won in 2000 and was running against Kerry, I would vote Gore. Gore was much better than Kerry. why he didn't run again I'll never know, cause he would have had no problem winning this one.
Politics aside, this isnt a Liberal or Conservative issue, This is a Media issue. This contry has the freedom of press for a reason. It's a check and balence in case we needed to overthrow this govenrment over. The Founding fathers wanted the People to have ultimate control over the fate of their own government, and they saw the media as in improtant tool to get the truth out. And that's where my problem is.
Truth is truth pure and simple. Propaganda is opinion presented as truth. Propaganda has no place in the media, and if it does, then we're in deep trouble as a country.
So what if it's leftist? Do you expect every reporting channel to be neutral?
No. I expect it to be factual. Not full of assumption. Fact is Fact. Pure and simple. Fact cannot be twisted to some adjenda and is simple pure and unquestionable. Assumption is the exact opposite. A perfect example of this is #24, which basicially states that since Bush is filling up recruit positions ("read: Draft Positions") that he MUST be going to reinstate the draft. It also reports about a bill to require 18-26 year old's into the military, but It doesn't say the outcome which would surely be it was voted down. This stuff appears in congress constantly and it voted down constantly. If it passed or if the draft was reinstated the news media would be all over it like Vietnam II just broke out, and everyone in congress as well as the presidency would be looking for new jobs in 2-6 years. And they know it.
Michael Moore is another example of this. you might want to Read this. It basicially lays down every untruth in Farenheit 911. Moore made some interesting points in that movie, but he also brought up a ton of stuff that he presented as fact that is totally unproveable or outright false.
It's a two way street too. The right does the same thing as the left when it comes to this. they bashed Cliton left and right and a lot of what they said was the same Propagandist Bull. But you never seen the media report on it either, because they knew that it was Propagandist Bull. Those stories must of made the 96-99 Censored list.
Both sides would never agree on the extreme end. it's like getting two magnets identical poles to stay together. the point is to pick a middle groud where your confortable. Simply put, if you want to go after Bush fine. There's a ton of stuff you can get him with that is totally true, undenyable and damaging. Dragging this crap out of the woodwork and presenting it as pure fact just discredit your main issue: that Bush is doing a bad job.
Left Leaning is not even the word for this, For those of you that don't want to read all the articles, let me sum it up for you:
1) I Hate Corporate America
2) I Hate Ashcroft
3) I Hate Bush
4) I Hate the U.S. Military
5) I Hate Big Oil
6) I Hate Corporate America
7) I Hate Bush
8) I Hate Big Oil
9) I Hate Bush
10) I Hate Corporate America and Bush
11) I Hate Fox News
12) I Hate the U.S. Military and Bush
13) I Hate Corporate America
14) I Hate Conservatives in General
15) I Hate the U.S. Military
16) I Hate Ashcroft
17) I Hate Corporate America
18) I Hate Big Oil
19) I Hate Corporate America
20) I Hate Big Oil
21) I Hate Corporate America
22) I Hate the U.S. Military
23) I Hate Corporate America
24) I Hate the U.S. Military
25) I Hate Corporate America
I dont see one article in general that even hints at a Democrat. Just about everyone of these things targets the Republicians in one form of another.
I'm no big fan of Bush, but geez! This isn't Jornalism, it's Propaganda. This is about as believable as Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingram Teaming up to do at 25 Top Censored Media list.
there was a ton of changes done all across the board and under the hood, but most of the ones you see are to prevent social problems.
Microsoft as well as Apple and other companies understand more about the average computer user than most other software companies, especially when it comes to these particular rules:
1) 99% of computer users do not know what they are doing
2) People do not read unless they absoletly have to.
3) You must create all user interfaces under the presence of monkey. In other words, if you cant train a monkey to use it then your wasting your time.
The Security center for example, covers all three of these, it basically forces you to read it by prompting non stop, it's easy enough to train a monkey against and even a moron can understand that a big red blinking X covered shield means bad.
Sp2 also brings these concepts to the activeX realm. Spyware becomes almost impossible to install through IE using them most common methods used today. basicially you load a spyware infested page, it then drops down the "oh no this page is downloading activeX" box, forces you to click on it and say download it, Reloads the page again which screws most browser hijacking from occuring because most hijackers don't reload in a browser refresh, then promps you again to make sure you really want to do this.
They know they don't want people downloading this stuff, so they first force you to pay attention and read, then they actually break the #3 rule to purposely make it hard for John Q moron to install the scumware unless he absoletly needs it to survive.
It also has to be noted that the firewall and automatic patching is ON and encouraged to be ON by the security center. regardless of what you think of the firewall it basically stealth's you from the net and it's better than wide open anyday, and if everyone was patching automatically we wouldn't have had half of the infected blaster and sasser systems out there.
SP2 has flaws, basicially a complex virus could easily turn off the firewall, spoof the security center and go insane, but they did some under the hood things to deter rapid spreading and frankly I dont care which operating system your running, If a virus has root, or administrator or whatever is the highest access given by your favorite OS, Your Screwed because it will disable any protection you may have had and hapilly make you and your Net neighbor's life a living hell.
The stupid thing about these things is that most of the anti-piracy methods actually cause MORE Piracy than they prevent.
Think about it. Drive Virtualization wouldn't be so mainstream if you didn't need to stick the Game CD in the drive every time you want to play it, which is a PITA, and Game Backups wouldn't be needed for just about the same reason.
The Best Anti-Piracy Measure would be an activation/account one. Basicially like what Valve does with steam but more secure. You actively have an online account with the game developer and you can tie your games to it with a one time entered CD KEY, and it tracks your progress, games you bought from them, overall stats, etc to add vaule to the service. If you have to reinstall the game, it simply asks for your id and password and it lets you play without stupid disk swapping, or asking for the CD Key Again.
It's already been proven that Protecting the CD is an absolute waste of time, and disk swapping pisses everyone off, so whats the point of continuing to do these if there are better ways out there to reduce the piracy footprint?
Honestly, I'm just waiting for this statement to come out of a Scientist. It would get it over with and wouldn't spend millions of Dollars.
"If it is or uses either Electricy or a Chemical, and/or its not found in nature in any way, it will kill you slowly"
haha, there's no other brand.
Nvidia Soundstorm. The Audio solution that comes with the Nforce2 MCP-T. And it's a Nvidia Product, So ID Getting full support From Nvidia would be easy as Pie since both companies like each other so much.
There's also VIA's Vinyl Audio Solution, as well as Analog Devices Soundmax.
I'm pretty much ready to upgrade my card from a 64mb ti4200 to a 6800gt.
My problem is that I would have liked to see someone at HardOCP test the BFG 6800GT card on doom3. Carmack's overclocking warning got me a little worried that the BFG card may give me trouble since it's overclocked out of the box.
If it could give me problems, I might just buy the EVGA card and overclock it myself.
The way this thing is written, just about anything that sends you updates with a menu interface is fair game.
MS and Apple Lawyers are going to have a field day with this guy. There is so much Prior art out there that it will be over in weeks.
Well, now I got a singing plant. All I need now are mini plant sunglasses and someone to invent a device to make a plant dance and I'm all set.
In the case of Bill Gates, most of his wealth is tied to the stock market, where he heavily invests. That's why he lost a ton of his wealth when the stock market blew up in 2000.
If he did get some sort of tax cut, it is safe to say that most of it would be invested. Since it's being invested, whatever company he invests in, and not necessiarly Microsoft mind you, would get a benefit and they would be creating the jobs.
It drives me nuts that people actually believe that the rich are all like "Scrooge Mc'Duck" and have a huge 5 story safe where they put all the money in. That may be true for some rich eccentrics, but most wealthy entrepreneurs tend to invest a majority of their wealth in the stock market for the long term.
Well. This has a potential of being original. Let's run this through the Five Scripts of Star Trek and see what happens.
1) "Aww! It's a totally new, cute little space alien!! Wook at the cute wittle space alien! Let me pet it and stroke it and help it and dont screw up the Primary Directive and.... - Hmm. Romulans would be new to them so it uses Script #1
2) "Oh no! It's a Rift!! Quick! get the "How to use the Deflector to fix a rip in the space-time continuium" manual and fix it before it destroys the universe! It's under the "What to do when the Holodeck Goes self aware and traps the crew" manual! -Definetly doesn't sound like a rift is involved.
3) "Oops! We Traveled Through Time!! Lets get out of here before we screw up histo...Wait a Second, WE ALREADY SCREWED IT UP! OH NO! WE GOT TO FIX IT!! - doesn't sound like time travel is involved.
4) "Oh My god! This guy is Nuts!! We have to stop him at all costs! That means you die, and you die, and you die, in fact the whole ship is gonna probably be destroyed! Hmm. I always wanted a new ship. Boy I love that new ship smell! Hope you live to smell it with me! - Definetly getting a Khaaan!!! vibe from the title. looks like a lot of red shirts are going to ignite. So it least sound like it has to potential to use Script #4
5) "Holy Crap! The Holodeck is trapping the crew!! We got to Get them out of the.. Wait a second. WE'RE IN THE HOLODECK! OH NO! WE GOT TO GET OUT BEFORE ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!! - Since Holodecks wouldn't have been invented yet, its a safe bet that this won't be used.
On Second though, it sounds like the same old crap. War is a nice touch though.
Honestly, I dont see much of a need for GPS on mars. It's not like we need a precise 10 meter point of exactly where a rover is. As long as the rover sees where it's at it's pretty much what we want out of it.
I can see a use for a DSN (Deep Space network) to consolidate mars radio traffic into one higher powered more redundant network, but GPS would be a pain to make work on mars. This is especially true with the amount of satelites needed, not to mention there would have to be a way to sync all of their internal clocks to give a precise reading which would be tough from an hour away.
according to the GSN show, they did know it was not a good random pattern way before Mike Larson. In fact, CBS producers were genuinely concerned that the pattern wasn't random enough. They just never figured that anyone would figure it out before they updated the system.
The board had two major problems.
1) The technology available to them was very limited in scope. It had limits on how many and how big the random patterns could be. Although I dont see why they couldn't design a system to be completely random, for some reason that I can't remember it had to be psudorandom.
2) The screen values were not random enough. Idelally, it would have been perfect to have a whammy on every possible value and have that run a totally random pattern. at that time however, they didn't cover the entire board. There were many that didn't ever show a whammy and Mike picked two of them that were easy to track the pattern to. And one of them happened to be big bucks.
Once Mike walked all over the board, both of these things were changed. there were more whammys and much more random patterns.
Basicially this is it in a nutshell.
-Michael Larson at the time was unemployed. He became obsessed with game shows thinking that he could get on one and outsmart the system to win on it.
-He starting watching Press your luck and realized that the pattern was psudorandom and completely reversed engenerred the Random pattern, and even perfected a button pressing method to be as precise as possible
-Mike applied to be a contestant on Press your luck, and eventually got the green light to get on. CBS Producers commented that his demeanor was different from other contestants and they were suspicious of him, but couldn't find anything wrong so he got the go ahead.
-Once on the show, In the beginning, he acted just like any other contestant, and went through the question and answer session pretty unenentfully.
-the spin round, was where it got interesting. The First thing Mike did was get a whammy. It's believed that he did it on purpose to get a feel of the button to the board interaction and also not to look like he was blantently hacking the board.
-after the first whammy, it was all big bucks from there. he would almost always either hit big bucks or another space on the "wheel" that he knew would never popup a whammy. The whole time doing it he was in some sort of trancelike state.
-The second Q&A Session goes underway, already he's won a good amount of money but CBS hasn't seen anything yet. CBS Producers are going nuts in the back, more than aware that he's got the system beat from his first round performance. Peter Tomarken is basicially shocked at this point.
-Second round comes around. Mike basicially spins and never stops, collecting even more spins and more money. it gets to the point that Peter is beyond stunned now and doesn't know how to react to this, CBS is going insane in the back, and the episode is running way out of bounds for it's time.
-Mike breaks the $100,000 barrier. at this point he's won more money than was not only thought possible, but has broke the daytime money winnings record.
-finally, he gets frightened that he's going to screw up and get a whammy, so he passes the spins.
-eventually, some spins he has to take get passed to him. Wins Even more money. until basicially all the spins are gone.
-in the end, CBS "retired" him as champion, and originally would not pay him for cheating. eventually they paid him when their lawyers advised thm that they would lose because their wheel was too predictive. They aired te show as a two day show, because it was so long, they increased the patterns, and added more whammy slots where there originally were none.
I would like to say that Valve does a good job stopping cheats, but as it stands right now, it's a joke.
I'm the head admin of the "[SmD]Anarchy Server". just about daily we have to deal with cheats. Lots of them. In fact, at this point in time, we are catching about 3-5 script hacks a day using HLGuard, and thats not counting the aimbots, wallhacks and the like.
The big problem with this is the way that Valve handles cheats. The first thing that you will learn as a CS server admin is VAC is basicially useless and will not stop cheats. I wish that Valve would just bite the bullet and give the entire VAC system to Punkbuster, pay them, and let them handle it, but since that will never happen we have to deal with third party apps that either work some of the time, or require a third party client to be run before you play CS that will cause problems, a drop in the playerbase and will not necessiarly stop the cheaters.
I do know that when VAC is updated, it works, the problem is that Valve will basicially declare a "Cheat Free Month" as I call it and for one month update the thing almost daily, then after the "Cheat Free Month" is over they will do nothing for two to three months and let cheats run rampant. Currently it's been over a month since they last updated it. Meanwhile, punkbuster updates almost daily, and keeps most of the games it protects cheat free, and UT2k4 is cheat free by design as well as their updated in house Cheat system that works.
Unless they decide that VAC is what they should be focusing on, and hire a dedicated staff of people that will update VAC daily, there will be cheats on both HL and HL2 based games and the situation will never improve. This is especially true when I've already seen HL2 beta in action (IE: the actual game, not Videos) at one of our LAN parties and that there are cheats already for the beta code that work.
Sadly enough, it seems that the ideal Best Buy employee is somewhere around the personality level of your average person after a night of drinking with no stop in dreamland.
Funny. I always though the Ideal Best Buy Employee was a tall guy in a plaid leisure suit with big teeth that couldn't stop saying "Hey!" all day.
Referring back to the parent post. I used to work for a small Computer Repair shop. The Bust Buy techs from our local Bust Buy used to really piss me off. We used to get people that would bring in some of the most screwed up stuff man has ever seen, and the response From Bust Buy was always "Format and Reinstall" Regardless of the problem. I Understand that F&R is the way to go for over half of major software malfunctions, but when the hard drive is Clicking of Death, and the power supply is shutting off the computer every 15 mins, or the RAM is producing memory errors, it's a good bet that a F&R isn't going to fix the problem.
Not me.
After Blaster I said Screw that and built an Software Update Server on our network here. All I had to do was forcibly sync it, approve the update and away it goes.
All I have to do is wait, and check the logs (using suslogvewer) on monday to make sure that they updated.
either do that from MS, or run the sp2 beta.
On my work machine I'm testing SP2 and it definetly is a lot better in handling popups and hijackers pretty well. no more "do you wish to install and run "X" stuff anymore, it just comes up in a bar that you have to foribly click on and affirm that you want to really install this.
I haven't tried it against the exploit, but most people have been saying that it fixes the problem.