I wouldn't call it "mostly crap", it's a good example of an indie 16-bit style RPG, like you would find on Super Nintendo. Breath of Death VII is the 8-bit style like NES. Obviously Final Fantasy for NES and Final Fantasy 2 for SNES were big inspirations. Breath of Death does get a little bit tedious and is missing things like background graphics or character animations for combat that even Final Fantasy had. Cthulu Saves The World comes with several "bonus modes" of playing the game and other things to squeeze maximum replay value out of your 16-bit $3 purchase.
The fact that police cars have cameras which can identify license plates and flag any vehicles with violations will make the roads safer. Storing that information along with location and date/time information for an indefinite period doesn't help anything. You know, for the citizens at least.
If the fake store is selling counterfeit products, then it really doesn't have anything to do with offshoring.
There is a market in China for tech schematics and other trade secrets. Companies in China do have Apple's schematics for their devices, so it's entirely possible that someone acquired those schematics, analyzed them to figure out which things they might be able to swap out for cheaper parts, and produced something that looks and acts real enough to sell. It might not be the same thing Apple is selling, but it's still based on Apple's schematics that they sent to their manufacturers in that country. In other words, it has everything to do with outsourcing.
Wouldn't this be just as news-worthy if this was happening in Latvia?
Maybe so, but how about this: why is this happening in China and not Latvia? Do you think it's just a coincidence that the devices also happen to be made in China?
It can't be by accident, but I don't see how such stupidity would benefit them.
It obviously doesn't benefit companies like Citibank to have stupid people making important decisions, but I guess that's the way they operate. These are the same kinds of companies that managed to seriously damage much of the world economy by their greed and stupidity.
If I was to guess, I would say that a mid-level manager hired an outside consultant programmer for as little as he possibly could (you know, to save the company money), the programmer ended up being a beginner because you get what you pay for, and no one who was technical enough to look for security issues reviewed the project before it went live. And, apparently, they never bothered to have a decent programmer review the actual code either. That's simply a guess though. As to how it's possible that things like this could happen in such "important" places, well, never underestimate the bounds of human stupidity. When you're considered "too big to fail" I don't think you go around trying to cover your ass, I think you probably feel invincible.
Why is that hard to believe? It's not the case that it's suddenly become easier to hack servers, the issue is that more people have the knowledge required to do so (and that old vulnerabilities are left unpatched). I mean, some of the hacks have been basic SQL injection or URL vulnerabilities that any competent programmer would know how to avoid. Those crappy systems have been in place for a while, people are just now starting to exploit them for the hell of it. It could have been going on all this time by groups that weren't announcing that they were doing it, like the Chinese government.
I mean, consider this: when Citibank got "hacked" a while ago, and had account details stolen, do you know what the vulnerability was? The URL of the account page looked something like this:
www.citibank.com/my_account.asp?id=<your credit card number here>
All they did was change the number and, voila, it turns out that Citibank was not bothering to authorize the logged-in user to view the given account. Once you were logged in, you could view any account. That's not exactly world-class security, that's something that most kids on the w3schools forum could warn you about. It's an embarrassment that a financial company like Citibank would pay to have something like that built by someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Who cares? They work hard to isolate themselves from everyone else, and they have no problems with software piracy. Why should anyone else care about what crappy old software they're using? Maybe one day the great firewall will go up in smoke and they'll have access to the wider internet and realize just how far behind their browsers are. Other than that, it doesn't make a single bit of difference to me what browser they use. The only Chinese people who would be accessing my sites or servers are working for the government.
The others used other gravity sensors like little metal balls and contact sets or mercury switches not accelerometers. And they weren't touchscreen devices. Trivial differences, but different technology.
You're making it too complex. This is the idea: a display surface rotates, and the image it is displaying gets automatically re-oriented according to the rotation. It's kind of ridiculous to start claiming that somehow it's a new idea because the things that are around and outside the display surface are different, or that the display surface is made of a different material, or that the sensor that detects movement is different. It's the same idea, and the patent office needs to stop with granting patents for the same old crap in a different package and focus on things that are actually new.
I'm wondering where the guy is who I was arguing with that the term "PC" means "personal computer" and hence applies to damn near any computer sold for personal use. He continued to insist that, because of marketing, the definition had changed, and that the term "PC" now referred to the operating system. I appreciated this line especially:
A third of big businesses now let employees choose a Mac as their PC
So why do you think El Al have such a good record of not being attacked by nutjobs?
Because they have an effective, well thought-out, well-planned security system that also happens to be efficient and non-invasive to passengers. What we have in the US is not effective nor well-planned, definitely not efficient, and obviously invasive.
The "porno scanners"? Give me a break. You are so scared that somebody is going to see your naked body? Big whoop. What are you ashamed of? This is getting ridiculous.
Listen pal, maybe you're happy to remove your clothes and spread your cheeks whenever the government asks you to, but it turns out that a lot of people in this country believe that the government does not have the right to ask (and certainly not to force) people to do that.
I don't get why most Americans are so ashamed of their bodies
That's not the only thing you don't get, you also don't get the point of the argument.
had she simply said, "no thank you, i dont approve of your practices or the safety of your technology" and accepted the fact that without a security screening
The agents would have pointed out that once anyone enters the screening area, they must complete their screening. Failure to do so is illegal, and she would have gone to jail anyway. They don't allow you to approach the checkpoint, get chosen for screening, and then decline to be screened.
I don't understand, what do I type into my IE to get to the project homepage? I don't think I have SourceForge or a repository installed. I'll just go to Google and type a vague description that makes sense to me.
Given what some windows download sites look like, it's little wonder that some people are starting to flee to the "walled garden".
Are you trying to imply that people who choose a "walled garden" approach are admitting that they are incompetent of handling something like their online security that is apparently supposed to be so rudimentarily simple?
That may be true, but there's also never any reason to download FOSS from an untrusted source (except for not knowing any better). With cracked proprietary software, untrusted sources are the only sources.
Actually his reply was "so what if it's slightly easier to repackage open-source software; it's possible to repackage closed-source software too". Thus, "it doesn't matter if it is open or close source. You are an idiot if you download anything from an untrusted source".
What? No, that wasn't his reply. His reply was "No it doesn't" followed by a concise definition of what an idiot is.
Moral of the story: closed-source isn't more trustworthy than open-source.
That's right, the "trustworthiness" of each is about the same, but it's still easier to repackage software for which you have the code. In fact, the license for the OSS specifically allows it.
It doesn't matter if it is open or close source. You are an idiot if you download anything from an untrusted source, point and end of discussion.
Interesting rebuttal. I assume you're responding to this statement, since it's the only statement in the summary where the response "no it doesn't" makes grammatical sense:
Unfortunately, its open source nature makes it easier for people with bad intentions to repackage it in nefarious ways.
So you're saying that no, it's not true that it's easier to repackage open-source software vs. proprietary, because people who "download anything from an untrusted source" are idiots. You realize that your response doesn't address the original statement, right? People downloading things are not related to how easy it is to repackage a given piece of software.
It really is easier to repackage software for which you have the source code, surprise surprise. That's not a knock on open-source software, it's a fact of life. You can comment all you want about the nature of what makes a trusted download source for the vast majority of the world's computer users, but that doesn't change the fact that it's easier to repackage open-source software than proprietary.
much like the F14 fleet that never saw any real action before being retired
Now that's just BS. I distinctly remember an engagement where the communications ship SS Layton had become disabled and was drifting into hostile waters when it received aerial support from a squad of F-14s from the USS Enterprise. If I recall correctly, those F-14s saved the day.
Plenty of people, apparently. He sold everything he stole. A random 30 year old Floridian working at the TSA booth stealing people's stuff probably isn't exactly a shrewd electronics aficionado, such as yourself.
Seriously? I do Javascript programming every week. You're really asking me where to start learning Javascript? Should I direct you toward a tutorial, or maybe it would be a better idea to actually wait for the scripting documentation for Office 365. Whatever language they use, even Javascript, is probably going to be sandboxed somehow so the rules may differ from standard Javascript where you're able to access the entire DOM of the page.
And don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to download a Sudoku solver. If you just like tinkering, there are also better tools available than an Excel spreadsheet with VBA. I used to write a ton of macros also, one of my first jobs was implementing all of the paperwork for an apartment management company in Excel, even reports and things. It was fine for the time, but there are way better tools available now. Knowing what I know now, in no way do I desire a return to the VBA macro days. I'm sorry if VBA is the only language you've used, but there are plenty of relatively easy to learn languages out there that can do a lot cooler things than a macro can.
I was fortunate enough to attend a launch a couple years ago, I've never seen anything like it. The sound when the rumble from the main engines hits you, even from miles away, is pretty amazing. Even so, I'm still jealous of anyone who gets to go to this one.
One of the things that stuck in my head was while we were driving around KSC we were driving past the Vehicle Assembly Building, historic launch pads, control center, the port where the external tanks come in from the sea, and the visitor area that contains a full Saturn-V rocket, with a view of the shuttle on the pad across a small body of water. Among all of that are alligators living in the canals and water around the complex, where you see them laying on all the banks, and it's a pretty crazy contrast to see arguably one of the most advanced things humanity has produced next to one of the most ancient animals that is still around. I can only imagine what the alligators think when they hit the ignition on that thing.
Slashdot Mirror
I wouldn't call it "mostly crap", it's a good example of an indie 16-bit style RPG, like you would find on Super Nintendo. Breath of Death VII is the 8-bit style like NES. Obviously Final Fantasy for NES and Final Fantasy 2 for SNES were big inspirations. Breath of Death does get a little bit tedious and is missing things like background graphics or character animations for combat that even Final Fantasy had. Cthulu Saves The World comes with several "bonus modes" of playing the game and other things to squeeze maximum replay value out of your 16-bit $3 purchase.
The fact that police cars have cameras which can identify license plates and flag any vehicles with violations will make the roads safer. Storing that information along with location and date/time information for an indefinite period doesn't help anything. You know, for the citizens at least.
No one wants Chinese iPods either. That's why they're selling fake American ones.
If the fake store is selling counterfeit products, then it really doesn't have anything to do with offshoring.
There is a market in China for tech schematics and other trade secrets. Companies in China do have Apple's schematics for their devices, so it's entirely possible that someone acquired those schematics, analyzed them to figure out which things they might be able to swap out for cheaper parts, and produced something that looks and acts real enough to sell. It might not be the same thing Apple is selling, but it's still based on Apple's schematics that they sent to their manufacturers in that country. In other words, it has everything to do with outsourcing.
Wouldn't this be just as news-worthy if this was happening in Latvia?
Maybe so, but how about this: why is this happening in China and not Latvia? Do you think it's just a coincidence that the devices also happen to be made in China?
I agree. Apple should take the lead, by moving production of their electronics to the US. We need the jobs.
If Apple isn't going to bother to help our economy, then I don't give a shit who rips them off. They sowed the field, now they get to reap it.
Oh, and here's something else to piss you off:
Citibank received $300+ Billion in bailout funds. They had the money to pay a decent programmer, but I guess other things were more important.
If you have your money in Citibank, I hope you sleep tight.
It can't be by accident, but I don't see how such stupidity would benefit them.
It obviously doesn't benefit companies like Citibank to have stupid people making important decisions, but I guess that's the way they operate. These are the same kinds of companies that managed to seriously damage much of the world economy by their greed and stupidity.
If I was to guess, I would say that a mid-level manager hired an outside consultant programmer for as little as he possibly could (you know, to save the company money), the programmer ended up being a beginner because you get what you pay for, and no one who was technical enough to look for security issues reviewed the project before it went live. And, apparently, they never bothered to have a decent programmer review the actual code either. That's simply a guess though. As to how it's possible that things like this could happen in such "important" places, well, never underestimate the bounds of human stupidity. When you're considered "too big to fail" I don't think you go around trying to cover your ass, I think you probably feel invincible.
Why is that hard to believe? It's not the case that it's suddenly become easier to hack servers, the issue is that more people have the knowledge required to do so (and that old vulnerabilities are left unpatched). I mean, some of the hacks have been basic SQL injection or URL vulnerabilities that any competent programmer would know how to avoid. Those crappy systems have been in place for a while, people are just now starting to exploit them for the hell of it. It could have been going on all this time by groups that weren't announcing that they were doing it, like the Chinese government.
I mean, consider this: when Citibank got "hacked" a while ago, and had account details stolen, do you know what the vulnerability was? The URL of the account page looked something like this:
www.citibank.com/my_account.asp?id=<your credit card number here>
All they did was change the number and, voila, it turns out that Citibank was not bothering to authorize the logged-in user to view the given account. Once you were logged in, you could view any account. That's not exactly world-class security, that's something that most kids on the w3schools forum could warn you about. It's an embarrassment that a financial company like Citibank would pay to have something like that built by someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
Who cares? They work hard to isolate themselves from everyone else, and they have no problems with software piracy. Why should anyone else care about what crappy old software they're using? Maybe one day the great firewall will go up in smoke and they'll have access to the wider internet and realize just how far behind their browsers are. Other than that, it doesn't make a single bit of difference to me what browser they use. The only Chinese people who would be accessing my sites or servers are working for the government.
The others used other gravity sensors like little metal balls and contact sets or mercury switches not accelerometers. And they weren't touchscreen devices. Trivial differences, but different technology.
You're making it too complex. This is the idea: a display surface rotates, and the image it is displaying gets automatically re-oriented according to the rotation. It's kind of ridiculous to start claiming that somehow it's a new idea because the things that are around and outside the display surface are different, or that the display surface is made of a different material, or that the sensor that detects movement is different. It's the same idea, and the patent office needs to stop with granting patents for the same old crap in a different package and focus on things that are actually new.
If you can get legal fees if they sue you and you invalidate their patent, then I think any lawyer might want that job.
I'm wondering where the guy is who I was arguing with that the term "PC" means "personal computer" and hence applies to damn near any computer sold for personal use. He continued to insist that, because of marketing, the definition had changed, and that the term "PC" now referred to the operating system. I appreciated this line especially:
A third of big businesses now let employees choose a Mac as their PC
So why do you think El Al have such a good record of not being attacked by nutjobs?
Because they have an effective, well thought-out, well-planned security system that also happens to be efficient and non-invasive to passengers. What we have in the US is not effective nor well-planned, definitely not efficient, and obviously invasive.
The "porno scanners"? Give me a break. You are so scared that somebody is going to see your naked body? Big whoop. What are you ashamed of? This is getting ridiculous.
Listen pal, maybe you're happy to remove your clothes and spread your cheeks whenever the government asks you to, but it turns out that a lot of people in this country believe that the government does not have the right to ask (and certainly not to force) people to do that.
I don't get why most Americans are so ashamed of their bodies
That's not the only thing you don't get, you also don't get the point of the argument.
had she simply said, "no thank you, i dont approve of your practices or the safety of your technology" and accepted the fact that without a security screening
The agents would have pointed out that once anyone enters the screening area, they must complete their screening. Failure to do so is illegal, and she would have gone to jail anyway. They don't allow you to approach the checkpoint, get chosen for screening, and then decline to be screened.
I don't understand, what do I type into my IE to get to the project homepage? I don't think I have SourceForge or a repository installed. I'll just go to Google and type a vague description that makes sense to me.
Given what some windows download sites look like, it's little wonder that some people are starting to flee to the "walled garden".
Are you trying to imply that people who choose a "walled garden" approach are admitting that they are incompetent of handling something like their online security that is apparently supposed to be so rudimentarily simple?
That may be true, but there's also never any reason to download FOSS from an untrusted source (except for not knowing any better). With cracked proprietary software, untrusted sources are the only sources.
What's your definition of a trusted source?
Actually his reply was "so what if it's slightly easier to repackage open-source software; it's possible to repackage closed-source software too". Thus, "it doesn't matter if it is open or close source. You are an idiot if you download anything from an untrusted source".
What? No, that wasn't his reply. His reply was "No it doesn't" followed by a concise definition of what an idiot is.
Moral of the story: closed-source isn't more trustworthy than open-source.
That's right, the "trustworthiness" of each is about the same, but it's still easier to repackage software for which you have the code. In fact, the license for the OSS specifically allows it.
It doesn't matter if it is open or close source. You are an idiot if you download anything from an untrusted source, point and end of discussion.
Interesting rebuttal. I assume you're responding to this statement, since it's the only statement in the summary where the response "no it doesn't" makes grammatical sense:
Unfortunately, its open source nature makes it easier for people with bad intentions to repackage it in nefarious ways.
So you're saying that no, it's not true that it's easier to repackage open-source software vs. proprietary, because people who "download anything from an untrusted source" are idiots. You realize that your response doesn't address the original statement, right? People downloading things are not related to how easy it is to repackage a given piece of software.
It really is easier to repackage software for which you have the source code, surprise surprise. That's not a knock on open-source software, it's a fact of life. You can comment all you want about the nature of what makes a trusted download source for the vast majority of the world's computer users, but that doesn't change the fact that it's easier to repackage open-source software than proprietary.
much like the F14 fleet that never saw any real action before being retired
Now that's just BS. I distinctly remember an engagement where the communications ship SS Layton had become disabled and was drifting into hostile waters when it received aerial support from a squad of F-14s from the USS Enterprise. If I recall correctly, those F-14s saved the day.
Plenty of people, apparently. He sold everything he stole. A random 30 year old Floridian working at the TSA booth stealing people's stuff probably isn't exactly a shrewd electronics aficionado, such as yourself.
Seriously? I do Javascript programming every week. You're really asking me where to start learning Javascript? Should I direct you toward a tutorial, or maybe it would be a better idea to actually wait for the scripting documentation for Office 365. Whatever language they use, even Javascript, is probably going to be sandboxed somehow so the rules may differ from standard Javascript where you're able to access the entire DOM of the page.
And don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to download a Sudoku solver. If you just like tinkering, there are also better tools available than an Excel spreadsheet with VBA. I used to write a ton of macros also, one of my first jobs was implementing all of the paperwork for an apartment management company in Excel, even reports and things. It was fine for the time, but there are way better tools available now. Knowing what I know now, in no way do I desire a return to the VBA macro days. I'm sorry if VBA is the only language you've used, but there are plenty of relatively easy to learn languages out there that can do a lot cooler things than a macro can.
I was fortunate enough to attend a launch a couple years ago, I've never seen anything like it. The sound when the rumble from the main engines hits you, even from miles away, is pretty amazing. Even so, I'm still jealous of anyone who gets to go to this one.
One of the things that stuck in my head was while we were driving around KSC we were driving past the Vehicle Assembly Building, historic launch pads, control center, the port where the external tanks come in from the sea, and the visitor area that contains a full Saturn-V rocket, with a view of the shuttle on the pad across a small body of water. Among all of that are alligators living in the canals and water around the complex, where you see them laying on all the banks, and it's a pretty crazy contrast to see arguably one of the most advanced things humanity has produced next to one of the most ancient animals that is still around. I can only imagine what the alligators think when they hit the ignition on that thing.
How could I do that in Javascript? I wouldn't know where to begin.
At one point you didn't know where to begin in VBA either, but you learned it.