My theory goes that the Homeland Security honchos are in a dead panic. They've been given enormous fiscal and human resources to 'make America safer' and they have been telling everyone that this is exactly what they are doing. At the same time, they are coming to some hard conclusions that you just can't engineer security into a society overnight.
Presto - wave of the wand, and what have you.
My theory goes that they are panicked because they are realizing that it takes more than a big Washington budget and a staff of a few thousand highly trained agents. It takes lots and lots of time. Years worth of time.
And meanwhile? Well, you're just as insecure as you were yesterday.
I think a lot of what the public is shown in terms of 'steps' HS is taking to ensure their safety is for show. Meanwhile HS is beating their collective heads against the factual wall that a democratic (democratic-republic, sure, whatever) society will, by definition, have traded personal safety for personal freedoms.
And just how do you engineer around that? Certainly not by matching passenger manifests against a list of "known terrorist aliases."
I realize you're kidding, but I wanted to point out the any kind of reaction on the part of the victim is generally seen as validation by the stalker. The professional advice I have been given on this matter has all told me don't do anything. Don't say anything. Don't write back. Don't open the door, etc.
As I am sure most of us in the geek fields are all aware, almost every other profession out there is still peopled with individuals who are... shall we say, antagonistic towards technology.
Also, I got a lot of 'well it's just a nasty email, it isn't like it is real' attitude. Good luck combating that one.
Your right, governator, but I couldn't work it into a movie contract with a reasonably percentage of box office take as a kick-back to my salary. So I had to go the legal route.
Some years ago, my then fiancee had been receiving death threats via email from a long time stalker. Even though the stalker was not technically savvy and left tracks all over his yahoo.com mailing, the FBI was not interested in purusing antying.
The Portland, OR field office told me, "Work it out with your local authorities, if they cannot help you, contact us." Now, keep in mind that I did my homework before calling the field office. Yahoo.com was even good enough to provide a free phone call from their legal council (kudos yahoo!) to explain to me *exactly* what I needed to do such that they could assist the authorities in a full investigation.
To make a long retort simply longer, the local yokels didn't know what to do. We got no joy with them because basically, the stalker had never shown up and brandished a weapon, or somehow vandalized property in a way we could proove or shot her dead on the doorstep.
We ended up getting results by simply *daily* badgering the detective who took the case. I walked him through everything from "how email works for dummies" to speaking with the DA to subpeona Yahoo.com for their mail records.
The whole ordeal took several months and the FBI's part in the entire deal (even though, as you correctly point out, these were serious threats of bodliy harm across state lines) was a fart in a hurricane. I would like to be able to give them props, but without a corpse, they apparently did not feel motivated.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
PS - serious note: I am amazed how many people I have related this story too who either know somebody in a similar situation or have been in this situation. Fixing this problem in my lady's life is one of the most positive things we have done to date. If you have questions how it worked or how to go about this, email me, I will respond - greg.crowe@gmail.com
These are not the only guys not getting any in college (or just out of college?).
Kidding! Kidding!
As many other posters have noted, the parallels between gaming addiction and all of the other time sinks in life are numerous. All things in moderation!
The "safer society" club of America is getting in my way of having a good time.
I do not want you to look out for me, watch over me, make sure I don't smoke in a bar. I do not need you to tell me my kids should wear helmets on bikes, nor do I require your input on just how much protective gear I should wear when I use my weed whacker on the lawn. I certainly do not reuquire you and your supporters forcing my car to have things like a GPS (in case I get lost, yes, I know) or insisting that my cell phone can be found in the middle of the Mojave (for that one in 100 million of us who stumbles headlong into the barren desert, sure).
We, the free thinking and self-aware people of north America are really sick and fucking tired of you looking out for us. We are not your children nor your keep. Please kindly fuck off and take your mother-hen make the world a safer place excuse for butting into my lifestyle back into your own living room where it squarly belongs.
A society without risks is a society who cannot place a tangible value on the rewards afforded to some risk takers.
This is a good, clean-cut arguement for aggressive blocklisting.
I'm the sysadmin (among other things) for a mid-sized manufacturing company in the pacific northwest. Blocking entire countries has been a luxury I have long enjoyed.
russia - blocked
china - blocked
most of africa - blocked
both koreas - blocked
You get the idea.
I might not even go so far as your 'borders' analogy; we still do business with a lot of these people. Maybe the better comparison would be a neighbor who won't restrain their screaming kids? After a while, I shut my window and turn on the stereo - even though I still do cook-outs with the same neighbor.
Point being, with any luck, blocking an entire country like this will be just loud enough to change the ISP's ways, but not loud enough that you and I will be hearing about this on the news reporting on the latest fiasco at the UN.:-)
just as a caveat, and to some what backup my claim to be a fan of the game.
Install under win Xp like so:
setup.exe -lgntforce
If you run on a multi-processor box, as soon's game runs, ALT+Tab out and open task manager --> Processes. Now set the CPU affinity to the System Shock process and you'll be able to play the game with no hangs.
With these tricks, it runs fine (as do other LG games - Theif, Theif2) under XP, NT and 2K.
I strongly agree with this poster. All the 'we want better games' fan boys out there who spend all day d/l (what we can only assume are shitty games, by their own definition) might reconsider their position.
I have two words which refute every weak "well, if your games were better we'd buy them and you'd be successful" straw-man of an arguement:
LookingGlass Stuidios
Theif, System Shock and... insolvency. Shut down because people would rather steal their games than buy them.
The american government's action is a good thing. It protects revoemag's ability to earn a living. I question the slashtot collective logic which states that MPAA / RIAA should go after the 'real pirates' and then condems one government when they attempt to do just that. Certainly, not all of these groups profit from their activities, but their activities do harm legitimate businesses (and their employees, and the rest of us who legitimatly puchase games).
In closing, to the fan boys, leave the drom room, bike down to your local electronics store and drop $10 that mom gave you on something in the bargain bin. It's faster than ripping it off from some.JP hosted server and if it sucks, well, mom's out ten bucks.
-- Okay, so that last bit was flaimbait, sorry,
-- RLJ
The medical community, in particular, resellers of medical equipment, have been dealing with this for a long time. My wife works for one such reseller (smallish, local business with a few chain stores) and they get TTY scams almost daily.
FYI, they have adopted the same response you have. I am certain we'll be sued as well because some folks designed an exploitable soltion and then legislated (read: forced) its use.
On a related note, this strongly smells like the spam laws of late.
He was talking about throwing the manual, not the terminal. Although being hit by a terminal thrown from a few stories high might actually be terminal as well.
You'd probably want to increase that height to 10 stories... so your projectile could reach terminal velocity.
The author completely ignores the storied history of exactly this kind of thing in closed source software -- only these backdoors are called 'features' or 'easter eggs.'
We need a new term for this kind of journalistic troll.
Certification mill, indeed; about the only cert worth more than the paper it's printed on is the CCIE - and you'll spend a good year to get one.
I cannot tell you how disheartening it was to read the resumes which amounted to "just got out of school, have my MCSE, hire me!" I felt like the frat boys woke up one day and decided to become tech people because there was a lot of money in it.
To the article's author, I firmly agree that renewing your certs is a poor use of limited funds. Better to lower your expenses and save your money.
You know what they say, "People who say money doesn't matter are usually spending someone else's."
I think your earlier post nailed it. A high percentage of the vocal 'no rights' minority have not the experience in settling their own accounts to respect what 'earn a living' means.
Ask the next person who makes this arguement to please connect the dots between creating society with no intellectual property laws and also having a robust marketplace of creative arts. Note that 'robust marketplace' precludes using the National Endowment for the Arts as an example:)
Slashdot Mirror
My theory goes that the Homeland Security honchos are in a dead panic. They've been given enormous fiscal and human resources to 'make America safer' and they have been telling everyone that this is exactly what they are doing. At the same time, they are coming to some hard conclusions that you just can't engineer security into a society overnight.
Presto - wave of the wand, and what have you.
My theory goes that they are panicked because they are realizing that it takes more than a big Washington budget and a staff of a few thousand highly trained agents. It takes lots and lots of time. Years worth of time.
And meanwhile? Well, you're just as insecure as you were yesterday.
I think a lot of what the public is shown in terms of 'steps' HS is taking to ensure their safety is for show. Meanwhile HS is beating their collective heads against the factual wall that a democratic (democratic-republic, sure, whatever) society will, by definition, have traded personal safety for personal freedoms.
And just how do you engineer around that? Certainly not by matching passenger manifests against a list of "known terrorist aliases."
Cheers,
-- RLJ
-- RLJ
BTW, Yahoo's mail servers are in a 3rd state. It was this bit that they carred about.
-- RLJ
Also, I got a lot of 'well it's just a nasty email, it isn't like it is real' attitude. Good luck combating that one.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Thanks!
-- RLJ
- RLJ
The Portland, OR field office told me, "Work it out with your local authorities, if they cannot help you, contact us." Now, keep in mind that I did my homework before calling the field office. Yahoo.com was even good enough to provide a free phone call from their legal council (kudos yahoo!) to explain to me *exactly* what I needed to do such that they could assist the authorities in a full investigation.
To make a long retort simply longer, the local yokels didn't know what to do. We got no joy with them because basically, the stalker had never shown up and brandished a weapon, or somehow vandalized property in a way we could proove or shot her dead on the doorstep.
We ended up getting results by simply *daily* badgering the detective who took the case. I walked him through everything from "how email works for dummies" to speaking with the DA to subpeona Yahoo.com for their mail records.
The whole ordeal took several months and the FBI's part in the entire deal (even though, as you correctly point out, these were serious threats of bodliy harm across state lines) was a fart in a hurricane. I would like to be able to give them props, but without a corpse, they apparently did not feel motivated.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
PS - serious note: I am amazed how many people I have related this story too who either know somebody in a similar situation or have been in this situation. Fixing this problem in my lady's life is one of the most positive things we have done to date. If you have questions how it worked or how to go about this, email me, I will respond - greg.crowe@gmail.com
Ducking Fuh.
-- RLJ
Kidding! Kidding!
As many other posters have noted, the parallels between gaming addiction and all of the other time sinks in life are numerous. All things in moderation!
-- Cheers,
-- RLJ
News at eleven!
-- RLJ
The "safer society" club of America is getting in my way of having a good time.
I do not want you to look out for me, watch over me, make sure I don't smoke in a bar. I do not need you to tell me my kids should wear helmets on bikes, nor do I require your input on just how much protective gear I should wear when I use my weed whacker on the lawn. I certainly do not reuquire you and your supporters forcing my car to have things like a GPS (in case I get lost, yes, I know) or insisting that my cell phone can be found in the middle of the Mojave (for that one in 100 million of us who stumbles headlong into the barren desert, sure).
We, the free thinking and self-aware people of north America are really sick and fucking tired of you looking out for us. We are not your children nor your keep. Please kindly fuck off and take your mother-hen make the world a safer place excuse for butting into my lifestyle back into your own living room where it squarly belongs.
A society without risks is a society who cannot place a tangible value on the rewards afforded to some risk takers.
-- RLJ
-- RLJ
I'm the sysadmin (among other things) for a mid-sized manufacturing company in the pacific northwest. Blocking entire countries has been a luxury I have long enjoyed.
russia - blocked
china - blocked
most of africa - blocked
both koreas - blocked
You get the idea.
I might not even go so far as your 'borders' analogy; we still do business with a lot of these people. Maybe the better comparison would be a neighbor who won't restrain their screaming kids? After a while, I shut my window and turn on the stereo - even though I still do cook-outs with the same neighbor.
Point being, with any luck, blocking an entire country like this will be just loud enough to change the ISP's ways, but not loud enough that you and I will be hearing about this on the news reporting on the latest fiasco at the UN. :-)
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Install under win Xp like so:
setup.exe -lgntforce
If you run on a multi-processor box, as soon's game runs, ALT+Tab out and open task manager --> Processes. Now set the CPU affinity to the System Shock process and you'll be able to play the game with no hangs.
With these tricks, it runs fine (as do other LG games - Theif, Theif2) under XP, NT and 2K.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Good point!
I have two words which refute every weak "well, if your games were better we'd buy them and you'd be successful" straw-man of an arguement:
LookingGlass Stuidios
Theif, System Shock and ... insolvency. Shut down because people would rather steal their games than buy them.
The american government's action is a good thing. It protects revoemag's ability to earn a living. I question the slashtot collective logic which states that MPAA / RIAA should go after the 'real pirates' and then condems one government when they attempt to do just that. Certainly, not all of these groups profit from their activities, but their activities do harm legitimate businesses (and their employees, and the rest of us who legitimatly puchase games).
In closing, to the fan boys, leave the drom room, bike down to your local electronics store and drop $10 that mom gave you on something in the bargain bin. It's faster than ripping it off from some .JP hosted server and if it sucks, well, mom's out ten bucks.
-- Okay, so that last bit was flaimbait, sorry,
-- RLJ
FYI, they have adopted the same response you have. I am certain we'll be sued as well because some folks designed an exploitable soltion and then legislated (read: forced) its use.
On a related note, this strongly smells like the spam laws of late.
Regards,
-- RLJ
"So, how did you feel after blowing the government's seven billion dollar wad with a programming for newbies error?"
Cheers,
-- RLJ
You'd probably want to increase that height to 10 stories ... so your projectile could reach terminal velocity.
Shoot me, I couldn't resist,
-- RLJ
The author completely ignores the storied history of exactly this kind of thing in closed source software -- only these backdoors are called 'features' or 'easter eggs.'
We need a new term for this kind of journalistic troll.
-- Cheers,
-- RLJ
Certification mill, indeed; about the only cert worth more than the paper it's printed on is the CCIE - and you'll spend a good year to get one.
I cannot tell you how disheartening it was to read the resumes which amounted to "just got out of school, have my MCSE, hire me!" I felt like the frat boys woke up one day and decided to become tech people because there was a lot of money in it.
To the article's author, I firmly agree that renewing your certs is a poor use of limited funds. Better to lower your expenses and save your money.
Cheers,
-- RLJ
-- RLJ
-- Cheers,
-- RLJ
I think your earlier post nailed it. A high percentage of the vocal 'no rights' minority have not the experience in settling their own accounts to respect what 'earn a living' means.
Ask the next person who makes this arguement to please connect the dots between creating society with no intellectual property laws and also having a robust marketplace of creative arts. Note that 'robust marketplace' precludes using the National Endowment for the Arts as an example :)
Cheers,
-- RLJ
Who so else has stood up to tell Kevin Tolly (of The Tolly Group - no shit) to STFU about tolken ring in all those Network World articles?
-- RLJ