If that were only true...
on
L0pht And The FBI
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· Score: 4, Interesting
Unfortunately, everything in that article pretty much speaks for itself after you get past the first few pages of drivel and leetspeak. These guys have spoken before Congress. These guys have met with Presidents. And these guys are more or less indirectly responsible for the draconian BS laws Congress passes. It rings true.
Yes, they're fakes. But they're fakes with a good PR people, and they're good at scaring the shit out of those in power. Has anyone seen the kind of things they claim to be able to do? It's ridiculous.
Re:I wonder if you can load other stuff....
on
MP3 for Gameboy
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· Score: 2
Actually, it uses SmartMedia, MMC, or Secure Digital cards. Not CompactFlash.
The GBA's headphone out is full stereo and sounds a hell of a lot better than the little tinny built in speaker. I wouldn't be surprised if the audio chip could handle a 16 bit stream but it only sounded worth a damn on the headphone jack.
First heard by Pat Gowan G3IOR, Oscar 7 seems to have made a comeback! Pat copied and downloaded CW telemetry. This information was confirmed by several AMSAT members as coming from OSCAR-7. This satellite was launched on November 15 1974, giving it a life of 27 and one half years. The receive frequency was 145.9738.
Jan King W3GEY commented, "G3IOR's telemetry frame is interesting. Apparently he did hear the AO-7 mode B beacon tonight.
"I got out my December 1974 and looked up the telemetry equations for the Morse Code Telemetry Encoder and what I found is in the attached spreadsheet.
"I'm blown away. Most of this stuff makes pretty good sense. In particular, the temperatures make sense and I would have guessed that they would be the most solid IF the reference voltage held (which it did). Interpreting some of this for those who may not understand or don't remember, the telemetry says the spacecraft was in Mode B; all the other beacons and Mode A were off. It is possible that the thing had just turned on because the old 24 hour timer just reset it to Mode B. The damn thing may think it is still on an every other day cycle. The power output of the transponder is 1.16 watts which may mean it is transmitting white noise plus beacon power. That seems about right, but a little low as I recall. The instrumentation switching regulator is in the middle of its normal range and seems to be working fine. The internal temperatures are around 15 deg. C; the external temperatures are around 5 C and the transponder PA temp, which should be the warmest - IS - it's 35.1 deg. C. The array current value is bust. I think maybe it always was. Need to look for some old telemetry to confirm that. The array current calibrations looks off. The array currents are in the normal range but all four show current. This can't be. Only two at a time should show current. Without a battery on line, this is entirely possible. The big find is that the battery voltage telemetry shows a voltage of 13.9 volts. Normal is 13.6 to 15.1 volts. So that would suggest the battery was normal BUT, the 1/2 battery voltage is measuring only 5.8 volts. That can't be. This imbalance probably means that the 5.8 volts is the correct value for the lower half of the battery (which is a low value for that half, if the cells were normal - they are probably not) and there is a break somewhere in the upper 1/2 of the battery string. My guess is the indicated voltage is really what the BCR is putting out with only the spacecraft load as a real load and the battery string has an effective break (or a pretty high resistance) somewhere in the upper half.
"So, this old war horse of a spacecraft seems to have come back from the dead if only for a few moments. And it is telling us, that even in a 1460 km high orbit a cheap spacecraft built by a bunch of hams, without very many high rel parts and without designing for a radiation dose like this, can last for 27+ years in space as far as a majority of its electronics is concerned. Even the damn precision reference voltage regulator is still in calibration!"
Like many of us, stunned by the announcement of the return of an old friend, Past President and BOD Chairman Bill Tynan added "Wow! Shades of Harry Potter and Steven King. It makes one believe in ghosts."
[ANS thanks President Robin Haighton for this item]
Well, it depends. The 14 hr units had a bit of space (10 minutes worth or so) move to reserved space, but they still had 14 hrs worth of space on them, and that odd extra amount of minutes it had (11? 14?) was rarely used by anyone. Not a tremendous thing. All the 30 hr and up units already had all the reserve they needed allocated, right out of the box, regardless of the version. The two drive units didn't have as much as the one drive units, but it didn't change in the 2.0 upgrade.
If you had upsized your box, then the 1.3->2.0 upgrade did take a lot more reserve as a side effect of the way the reserve mechanism worked.
2) The Privacy Foundation's report on Tivo points out that a) Your Tivo serial number is sent multiple times during each phone call and there is no way to guarantee data is truly treated anonymously except to trust Tivo.
Except by looking at the method which it uses to send the data and having intelligence enough to figure out that it's sending the serial-containing logs to a different place at a different time, and leaving no way to correlate the serial with the anonymous part of the data. Someone needs to tell "the privacy foundation" that you don't need an expensive box with modem trickery to spy on a connection, you just need a knowledge of how the system works. They've gone out of their way to stick to *exactly* what their privacy policy says, and all you need is a knowledge of Linux and TCL to see that.
b) Tivo's definition of "personal" information is significantly more narrow than the average privacy policy reader would assume, and so guarantees about your "personal" information are hollow.
Personal info, as defined by Tivo, is basically anything that can be tied back to you or to your box individually. Seems airtight to me.
c) Tivo suggests that the viewing information is never transmitted. In fact, all of the constituent pieces of the personal viewing information are transmitted to TiVo's computers.
Huh? Tivo explictly states that anonymous viewing information is transmitted. Read it, specifically section 2.3:
d) TiVo should disclose that their customer-identified diagnostic log can indicate when the TiVo remote control was in use.
The customer identified diagnostic log cannot indicate when the remote control was in use. The Privacy Foundation misinterpreted the meaning of several of the diagnotic messages because they simply looked at the log and not what the hell the unit was actually doing.
I agree, it's important to fight for your privacy. But it's equally important to pick your battles and not fight against the companies that explicit state what data they collect, how they use it, and then stick by that. Tivo has been incredible in that respect. They do it right, and if every company was as forthcoming as they have been about this sort of thing, then there'd be a lot less privacy battles to fight.
3) Anyone heard of Replay TV here?
Yeah, and we all hope they win. But frankly, they have an inferior product. They added nice whizbang features like ethernet (although Tivo Series 2 will have ethernet support too), show sharing, auto commercial skip, and a (somewhat lame) web control, which we geeks love, but they failed to fix the most important problems like: more intelligent scheduling, priorities that make sense, ability to see what the unit will do in the future and adjust it, etc... All the things that make a PVR better than a VCR. Adding neat features is easy. Making a unit work exceedingly well at one thing is more difficult. Tivo works better than Replay for the purpose of timeshifting programs. Replay works better than Tivo for the purpose of geek type stuff. And Replay, while they fight the good fight, are really pushing themselves into an uncertain future by doing so. Ever thought about "what if they lose", which they most probably will?
Also, you still haven't addressed the issue of hitting two buttons at the same time with your method. E.g., if your right foot is covering U and R, what do you do when both U and R come up at the same time?
Didn't see that you asked that before. Answer: You bend your foot. Ain't hard. Don't wear very hard soled shoes.
Didn't say it was new or novel. I thought it was quite obvious, in fact. And imagine my lack of surprise at how well it worked.:P
I call bullshit. You can't play for 15 minutes straight on one play, simply impossible.
I never said I was, but I was up there for approximately 30 minutes. I did go progressively harder on it. I also tried a couple maniac songs at the end and finally screwed up the last one in a major way because I was annoyed by that point. I played through the full song every time and never failed (until I gave up on it).
Clue time: The game isn't that fucking hard, even on the upper levels. You are making it harder than it is by constraining yourself to a certain type of play. And "shifting your weight" is not required, you simply jiggle your foot back and forth rapidly, simulating the shakes or something. It's hard to describe, but you can easily get double steps this way with a minor amount of practice.
I don't claim to be some kind of god at the game, I just found it so fucking ridiculous and ludicrously easy that it was worthless to play anymore. That's all I'm saying.
Frankly, I doubt you've ever actually played the game. Please keep your opinions on DDR to yourself until you've at least beaten an easy maniac level song.
Frankly, I doubt you've ever thought about the game in a serious gamer mode. Please keep your opinions to yourself until you learn how games really work and are not a pathetic loser trying to pick up chicks by fake-dancing to crappy techno music.
But here is where the challenge comes in! If you are a natural at DDR, as you so nonchalantly say you are, then it's time to actually do a lot more moving around.. make the game more challenging for yourself, use the foot furthest away from your target and hit it rather than just use the minimal movements, spin around between beats, and etc. The really good DDR players aren't the ones that use the most minimal set of movements, they are the ones that make DDR actually look like a dance, and hell of a good one at that. (dont be afraid to even get down and breakdance a little!)
The best DDR players, as in any game, would be "the ones that win". If you want to dance, then dance. If you want to play the game, then play the game. But don't do one and say you're doing the other.
"Make the game more challenging"? I thought that was what the game designers were supposed to do. Having to invent your own rules/restrictions to make a game harder to play is a key sign to a poorly designed/implemented game.
But when it comes to games... if you don't play by the rules, you're no longer playing the game. And the enjoyment of a game is in its playing.
How did I break the rules? I mean, the only "rules" are to touch the pad at the appropriate times. That's it.
I don't see how inventing a new set of "rules" that aren't part of the actual *game* and then say that because I broke these new rules you made up somehow impacts my enjoyment of the game. I can't see how people getting up there and losing miserably by trying to play the game in some backwards ass way can possibly be having fun. The real "rules" of the game do not include "dance" or "look like a jackass". They are "touch the pad to the beat as it displays on the screen". QED.
...I said "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen." Then I played. Guess what: it's still right up as one of the top ten dumbest games of all time.
Look, the idea is sound, the implementation is shit. If you have any "gaming skillz" at all, you worked out how to beat the thing in five minutes.
Diagonal placement of the feet on the four buttons, then rocking each foot as needed. Big feet are not required, because even a slight touch to the button is enough to trigger it. The rim around the buttons gives plenty of space to balance on. No exertion, no effort, no workout... just a little foot-eye coordination. I played for about 30 minutes on 4 quarters (50 cents to play) before I got bored and wandered away. Haven't bothered since.
I mean, really. I see these people jumping around like morons, and while it's entertaining to watch, it's also a sad commentary at how few people realize how trivially easy it is to beat the game by simply changing the play methodology away from the expected.
Yeah, okay, you have to have rhythm, a sense of timing, and lightning fast reactions (on the higher levels), but these are needed for most games anyway.:-P
It's an old mistake.. Most everyone uses most of their brain. The misconception comes from some old paper where it said that people only use about 10% of their brain at any one time. You don't need that part that lets you ride a bike or that part that lets you talk when you're sitting down and typing in front of a computer.. Unless you have a really weird voice activated unicycle for a chair...
Replay 1G: G. Changes to ReplayTV Service. At its discretion, ReplayTV may automatically add, modify, or disable any feature or functionality of the ReplayTV Service or on the ReplayTV 4500 when your unit connects to our server or at other times with or without notice. In addition, ReplayTV may modify the terms and conditions of this Agreement from time to time (and will notify you of these changes to the Agreement)
Tivo: Changes to TiVo Service. TiVo may, at its discretion, from time to time change, add or remove features of the TiVo Service or change the terms and conditions of this agreement. Such changes shall be effective upon notification by TiVo. You are responsible for viewing any new terms and if you are dissatisfied with any such changes to the TiVo Service or this agreement, you may immediately cancel your subscription as provided in the "Termination of Service" paragraph below. TiVo also reserves the right to discontinue the TiVo Service altogether at any time in its discretion.
They are the same basic thing. They simply used the word "remove" instead of "disable".
And contrary to the original article, Clause 2C talks about suspending or canceling the Replay service if they think you're infringing copyright, not about them breaking your box. Tivo's and Replay's agreements both basically allow them to disable the service portion for any reason (or none) whatsoever. So this copyright infringement thing is not a major difference, they already covered themselves on that score.
Well, no, they aren't. But lets just say they are for the sake of argument.
Well, why don't we simply READ the two and note that at least two of three are the same.
Replay 1A: A. Authorized Product. You may access and use the ReplayTV Service only with a ReplayTV 4500 product authorized to receive the ReplayTV Service and you agree not to tamper with or otherwise modify the authorized product.
Tivo: Using the TiVo Service. You may access and use the TiVo Service only with a product authorized to receive the TiVo Service and you agree not to tamper with or otherwise modify the authorized product....
Replay 1G: G. Changes to ReplayTV Service. At its discretion, ReplayTV may automatically add, modify, or disable any feature or functionality of the ReplayTV Service or on the ReplayTV 4500 when your unit connects to our server or at other times with or without notice. In addition, ReplayTV may modify the terms and conditions of this Agreement from time to time (and will notify you of these changes to the Agreement)
Tivo: Changes to TiVo Service. TiVo may, at its discretion, from time to time change, add or remove features of the TiVo Service or change the terms and conditions of this agreement. Such changes shall be effective upon notification by TiVo. You are responsible for viewing any new terms and if you are dissatisfied with any such changes to the TiVo Service or this agreement, you may immediately cancel your subscription as provided in the "Termination of Service" paragraph below. TiVo also reserves the right to discontinue the TiVo Service altogether at any time in its discretion.
Okay, so there's no easy direct correlation for Replay's 2C Clause. Still...
To most people, there's no difference whatsoever. To AV folks, a worm is just a particular subset of the class of viruses.
Klez, the number one virus today, is a worm. I haven't checked the numbers, but right now, I'm guessing that email accounts for 99% of virus (i.e., worm) transmission. And I'd guess that the majority of in-the-wild viruses today, are worms.
Not to dispute you.. well.. okay, to dispute you.
Klez is a virus, not a worm. By the definitions used by most techheads out there, a worm can infect your machine without you doing anything whatsoever. Klez, and other e-mail bourne viruses, require you to run an executable in some fashion (via opening an email, running an attachment, whatever). A worm doesn't need this, it uses exploits against your machine's network capabilities to get itself to run on your system. The Morris worm is probably the best known one, but there have been others. Code Red strikes me as probably the most recent worm. Etc..
Sorry, I just hate it when I see anyone refer to an email virus as a worm. It's not.
Sorry, but this won't work unless you have taught windows how to read a Linux partition. Yes, while booted into Linux, the virus could infect the windows partition. But, no way that windows virus accesses and infects the Linux partition.
It hardly matters what Windows knows how to do. The virus can have it's own FILESYSTEM CODE. Windows may not understand the partition, but it doesn't have to, only the virus does. Yeah? And Windows does have full access to the entire disk, you do understand that, right?
Now that's really some good thinkin' there. Completely bypasses all your security because you're not running any of it. Take it a step further, a virus that infects and spreads on Windoze, where it's easy to do, but finds Linux partitions, roots them and installs its own backdoors and so forth.
Kinda scary. Next time you're in linux, it connects to somewhere over the net telling the author another box has been rooted and voila, he ownz you.
Kinda a good reason not to run Windows in dual boot mode I'd say.
There's some preemptive stuff you can do with this though.. Have a kernel module (possibly compiled in) that does checksums all your major binaries before booting and warns you when they've changed. Of course, the virus has total kernel access too, so this may not be effective if the author planned for it.
This would make a lot more sense than some story about how if you get all the mp3s and assemble them in the right order and burn to CD it still is recognised as the original.
But that does work. Works very well, in fact.
One of the ways the freedb/cddb protocol recognizes a CD is a hash of the track timings. Like track 1= 1:30.57, track 2= 1:45.13, etc..
You take these, run them thru an algorithim, and get a number out. Then fuzzy search for the number. It works. Very well. The algorithim works in a way that compensates for minor differences. And really, all it takes is for someone else to have the same MP3s that you do. The *vast* majority of albums in these databases is not CD's inserted into a drive, it's a folder full of MP3's.
There's even MP3 tagging programs that will let you do a freedb/cddb search on a folder full of MP3's. "Tag and Rename" is one of them that comes to mind. So if you have a folder with all the songs from an album in it, then all you have to do is put them in the right order and hit the freedb query button to get the tracknames and so on.
It's an executable that the user must RUN to get infected. It then spreads itself via Kazaa and tricking other users into downloading it.
Don't download executables over P2P and you won't get infected. Seems a damn_smart thing to do anyway doesn't it? These people getting hit with it are likely also the same guys who spread e-mail viruses by running attachments.:P
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Unfortunately, everything in that article pretty much speaks for itself after you get past the first few pages of drivel and leetspeak. These guys have spoken before Congress. These guys have met with Presidents. And these guys are more or less indirectly responsible for the draconian BS laws Congress passes. It rings true.
Yes, they're fakes. But they're fakes with a good PR people, and they're good at scaring the shit out of those in power. Has anyone seen the kind of things they claim to be able to do? It's ridiculous.
Actually, it uses SmartMedia, MMC, or Secure Digital cards. Not CompactFlash.
The GBA's headphone out is full stereo and sounds a hell of a lot better than the little tinny built in speaker. I wouldn't be surprised if the audio chip could handle a 16 bit stream but it only sounded worth a damn on the headphone jack.
I put up a couple of images from the site here:
Small animated GIF of how it moves
Big pic of the unit unfolded
http://www.amsat.org/amsat/news/ans.html
AMSAT Miracle
STOP PRESS - Announcement....
First heard by Pat Gowan G3IOR, Oscar 7 seems to have made a comeback! Pat copied and downloaded CW telemetry. This information was confirmed by several AMSAT members as coming from OSCAR-7. This satellite was launched on November 15 1974, giving it a life of 27 and one half years. The receive frequency was 145.9738.
Jan King W3GEY commented, "G3IOR's telemetry frame is interesting. Apparently he did hear the AO-7 mode B beacon tonight.
"I got out my December 1974 and looked up the telemetry equations for the Morse Code Telemetry Encoder and what I found is in the attached spreadsheet.
"I'm blown away. Most of this stuff makes pretty good sense. In particular, the temperatures make sense and I would have guessed that they would be the most solid IF the reference voltage held (which it did). Interpreting some of this for those who may not understand or don't remember, the telemetry says the spacecraft was in Mode B; all the other beacons and Mode A were off. It is possible that the thing had just turned on because the old 24 hour timer just reset it to Mode B. The damn thing may think it is still on an every other day cycle. The power output of the transponder is 1.16 watts which may mean it is transmitting white noise plus beacon power. That seems about right, but a little low as I recall. The instrumentation switching regulator is in the middle of its normal range and seems to be working fine. The internal temperatures are around 15 deg. C; the external temperatures are around 5 C and the transponder PA temp, which should be the warmest - IS - it's 35.1 deg. C. The array current value is bust. I think maybe it always was. Need to look for some old telemetry to confirm that. The array current calibrations looks off. The array currents are in the normal range but all four show current. This can't be. Only two at a time should show current. Without a battery on line, this is entirely possible. The big find is that the battery voltage telemetry shows a voltage of 13.9 volts. Normal is 13.6 to 15.1 volts. So that would suggest the battery was normal BUT, the 1/2 battery voltage is measuring only 5.8 volts. That can't be. This imbalance probably means that the 5.8 volts is the correct value for the lower half of the battery (which is a low value for that half, if the cells were normal - they are probably not) and there is a break somewhere in the upper 1/2 of the battery string. My guess is the indicated voltage is really what the BCR is putting out with only the spacecraft load as a real load and the battery string has an effective break (or a pretty high resistance) somewhere in the upper half.
"So, this old war horse of a spacecraft seems to have come back from the dead if only for a few moments. And it is telling us, that even in a 1460 km high orbit a cheap spacecraft built by a bunch of hams, without very many high rel parts and without designing for a radiation dose like this, can last for 27+ years in space as far as a majority of its electronics is concerned. Even the damn precision reference voltage regulator is still in calibration!"
Like many of us, stunned by the announcement of the return of an old friend, Past President and BOD Chairman Bill Tynan added "Wow! Shades of Harry Potter and Steven King. It makes one believe in ghosts."
[ANS thanks President Robin Haighton for this item]
Heh. Might be a good idea to use the right codes. TD-TD-TU-IR will work better.
Well, it depends. The 14 hr units had a bit of space (10 minutes worth or so) move to reserved space, but they still had 14 hrs worth of space on them, and that odd extra amount of minutes it had (11? 14?) was rarely used by anyone. Not a tremendous thing. All the 30 hr and up units already had all the reserve they needed allocated, right out of the box, regardless of the version. The two drive units didn't have as much as the one drive units, but it didn't change in the 2.0 upgrade.
If you had upsized your box, then the 1.3->2.0 upgrade did take a lot more reserve as a side effect of the way the reserve mechanism worked.
Jesus, not again...
2) The Privacy Foundation's report on Tivo points out that
a) Your Tivo serial number is sent multiple times during each phone call and there is no way to guarantee data is truly treated anonymously except to trust Tivo.
Except by looking at the method which it uses to send the data and having intelligence enough to figure out that it's sending the serial-containing logs to a different place at a different time, and leaving no way to correlate the serial with the anonymous part of the data. Someone needs to tell "the privacy foundation" that you don't need an expensive box with modem trickery to spy on a connection, you just need a knowledge of how the system works. They've gone out of their way to stick to *exactly* what their privacy policy says, and all you need is a knowledge of Linux and TCL to see that.
b) Tivo's definition of "personal" information is significantly more narrow than the average privacy policy reader would assume, and so guarantees about your "personal" information are hollow.
Personal info, as defined by Tivo, is basically anything that can be tied back to you or to your box individually. Seems airtight to me.
c) Tivo suggests that the viewing information is never transmitted. In fact, all of the constituent pieces of the personal viewing information are transmitted to TiVo's computers.
Huh? Tivo explictly states that anonymous viewing information is transmitted. Read it, specifically section 2.3:
d) TiVo should disclose that their customer-identified diagnostic log can indicate when the TiVo remote control was in use.
The customer identified diagnostic log cannot indicate when the remote control was in use. The Privacy Foundation misinterpreted the meaning of several of the diagnotic messages because they simply looked at the log and not what the hell the unit was actually doing.
I agree, it's important to fight for your privacy. But it's equally important to pick your battles and not fight against the companies that explicit state what data they collect, how they use it, and then stick by that. Tivo has been incredible in that respect. They do it right, and if every company was as forthcoming as they have been about this sort of thing, then there'd be a lot less privacy battles to fight.
3) Anyone heard of Replay TV here?
Yeah, and we all hope they win. But frankly, they have an inferior product. They added nice whizbang features like ethernet (although Tivo Series 2 will have ethernet support too), show sharing, auto commercial skip, and a (somewhat lame) web control, which we geeks love, but they failed to fix the most important problems like: more intelligent scheduling, priorities that make sense, ability to see what the unit will do in the future and adjust it, etc... All the things that make a PVR better than a VCR. Adding neat features is easy. Making a unit work exceedingly well at one thing is more difficult. Tivo works better than Replay for the purpose of timeshifting programs. Replay works better than Tivo for the purpose of geek type stuff. And Replay, while they fight the good fight, are really pushing themselves into an uncertain future by doing so. Ever thought about "what if they lose", which they most probably will?
Err.. that hasn't happened. They (and we) have discouraged such hacks, but Tivo's taken no real action to stop them from occuring.
The new Series 2 TiVos have been changed so that you can't make hacks (like TiVoweb, telnet access and FTP) that are persistant across reboots.
So were the D-Tivo's, at one time. It got hacked anyway. Eventually, the Series 2 boxes will be hacked in the same way.
Also, you still haven't addressed the issue of hitting two buttons at the same time with your method. E.g., if your right foot is covering U and R, what do you do when both U and R come up at the same time?
:P
Didn't see that you asked that before. Answer: You bend your foot. Ain't hard. Don't wear very hard soled shoes.
Didn't say it was new or novel. I thought it was quite obvious, in fact. And imagine my lack of surprise at how well it worked.
I call bullshit. You can't play for 15 minutes straight on one play, simply impossible.
I never said I was, but I was up there for approximately 30 minutes. I did go progressively harder on it. I also tried a couple maniac songs at the end and finally screwed up the last one in a major way because I was annoyed by that point. I played through the full song every time and never failed (until I gave up on it).
Clue time: The game isn't that fucking hard, even on the upper levels. You are making it harder than it is by constraining yourself to a certain type of play. And "shifting your weight" is not required, you simply jiggle your foot back and forth rapidly, simulating the shakes or something. It's hard to describe, but you can easily get double steps this way with a minor amount of practice.
I don't claim to be some kind of god at the game, I just found it so fucking ridiculous and ludicrously easy that it was worthless to play anymore. That's all I'm saying.
Frankly, I doubt you've ever actually played the game. Please keep your opinions on DDR to yourself until you've at least beaten an easy maniac level song.
Frankly, I doubt you've ever thought about the game in a serious gamer mode. Please keep your opinions to yourself until you learn how games really work and are not a pathetic loser trying to pick up chicks by fake-dancing to crappy techno music.
But here is where the challenge comes in! If you are a natural at DDR, as you so nonchalantly say you are, then it's time to actually do a lot more moving around.. make the game more challenging for yourself, use the foot furthest away from your target and hit it rather than just use the minimal movements, spin around between beats, and etc. The really good DDR players aren't the ones that use the most minimal set of movements, they are the ones that make DDR actually look like a dance, and hell of a good one at that. (dont be afraid to even get down and breakdance a little!)
The best DDR players, as in any game, would be "the ones that win". If you want to dance, then dance. If you want to play the game, then play the game. But don't do one and say you're doing the other.
"Make the game more challenging"? I thought that was what the game designers were supposed to do. Having to invent your own rules/restrictions to make a game harder to play is a key sign to a poorly designed/implemented game.
But when it comes to games... if you don't play by the rules, you're no longer playing the game. And the enjoyment of a game is in its playing.
How did I break the rules? I mean, the only "rules" are to touch the pad at the appropriate times. That's it.
I don't see how inventing a new set of "rules" that aren't part of the actual *game* and then say that because I broke these new rules you made up somehow impacts my enjoyment of the game. I can't see how people getting up there and losing miserably by trying to play the game in some backwards ass way can possibly be having fun. The real "rules" of the game do not include "dance" or "look like a jackass". They are "touch the pad to the beat as it displays on the screen". QED.
...I said "That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen." Then I played. Guess what: it's still right up as one of the top ten dumbest games of all time.
:-P
Look, the idea is sound, the implementation is shit. If you have any "gaming skillz" at all, you worked out how to beat the thing in five minutes.
Diagonal placement of the feet on the four buttons, then rocking each foot as needed. Big feet are not required, because even a slight touch to the button is enough to trigger it. The rim around the buttons gives plenty of space to balance on. No exertion, no effort, no workout... just a little foot-eye coordination. I played for about 30 minutes on 4 quarters (50 cents to play) before I got bored and wandered away. Haven't bothered since.
I mean, really. I see these people jumping around like morons, and while it's entertaining to watch, it's also a sad commentary at how few people realize how trivially easy it is to beat the game by simply changing the play methodology away from the expected.
Yeah, okay, you have to have rhythm, a sense of timing, and lightning fast reactions (on the higher levels), but these are needed for most games anyway.
It's an old mistake.. Most everyone uses most of their brain. The misconception comes from some old paper where it said that people only use about 10% of their brain at any one time. You don't need that part that lets you ride a bike or that part that lets you talk when you're sitting down and typing in front of a computer.. Unless you have a really weird voice activated unicycle for a chair...
Note the portions in bold:
They are the same basic thing. They simply used the word "remove" instead of "disable".
And contrary to the original article, Clause 2C talks about suspending or canceling the Replay service if they think you're infringing copyright, not about them breaking your box. Tivo's and Replay's agreements both basically allow them to disable the service portion for any reason (or none) whatsoever. So this copyright infringement thing is not a major difference, they already covered themselves on that score.
Well, no, they aren't. But lets just say they are for the sake of argument.
Well, why don't we simply READ the two and note that at least two of three are the same.
Replay 1A: A. Authorized Product. You may access and use the ReplayTV Service only with a ReplayTV 4500 product authorized to receive the ReplayTV Service and you agree not to tamper with or otherwise modify the authorized product.
Tivo: Using the TiVo Service. You may access and use the TiVo Service only with a product authorized to receive the TiVo Service and you agree not to tamper with or otherwise modify the authorized product....
Replay 1G:
G. Changes to ReplayTV Service. At its discretion, ReplayTV may automatically add, modify, or disable any feature or functionality of the ReplayTV Service or on the ReplayTV 4500 when your unit connects to our server or at other times with or without notice. In addition, ReplayTV may modify the terms and conditions of this Agreement from time to time (and will notify you of these changes to the Agreement)
Tivo: Changes to TiVo Service. TiVo may, at its discretion, from time to time change, add or remove features of the TiVo Service or change the terms and conditions of this agreement. Such changes shall be effective upon notification by TiVo. You are responsible for viewing any new terms and if you are dissatisfied with any such changes to the TiVo Service or this agreement, you may immediately cancel your subscription as provided in the "Termination of Service" paragraph below. TiVo also reserves the right to discontinue the TiVo Service altogether at any time in its discretion.
Okay, so there's no easy direct correlation for Replay's 2C Clause. Still...
dude... you're lecturing an AV programmer on the proper terminology.
dude... wrong is wrong. Being a cool guy and generally an expert doesn't mean he's always right.
;-)
To most people, there's no difference whatsoever.
To AV folks, a worm is just a particular subset of the class of viruses.
Klez, the number one virus today, is a worm. I haven't checked the numbers, but right now, I'm guessing that email accounts for 99% of virus (i.e., worm) transmission. And I'd guess that the majority of in-the-wild viruses today, are worms.
Not to dispute you.. well.. okay, to dispute you.
Klez is a virus, not a worm. By the definitions used by most techheads out there, a worm can infect your machine without you doing anything whatsoever. Klez, and other e-mail bourne viruses, require you to run an executable in some fashion (via opening an email, running an attachment, whatever). A worm doesn't need this, it uses exploits against your machine's network capabilities to get itself to run on your system. The Morris worm is probably the best known one, but there have been others. Code Red strikes me as probably the most recent worm. Etc..
Sorry, I just hate it when I see anyone refer to an email virus as a worm. It's not.
Sorry, but this won't work unless you have taught windows how to read a Linux partition. Yes, while booted into Linux, the virus could infect the windows partition. But, no way that windows virus accesses and infects the Linux partition.
It hardly matters what Windows knows how to do. The virus can have it's own FILESYSTEM CODE. Windows may not understand the partition, but it doesn't have to, only the virus does. Yeah? And Windows does have full access to the entire disk, you do understand that, right?
Now that's really some good thinkin' there. Completely bypasses all your security because you're not running any of it. Take it a step further, a virus that infects and spreads on Windoze, where it's easy to do, but finds Linux partitions, roots them and installs its own backdoors and so forth.
Kinda scary. Next time you're in linux, it connects to somewhere over the net telling the author another box has been rooted and voila, he ownz you.
Kinda a good reason not to run Windows in dual boot mode I'd say.
There's some preemptive stuff you can do with this though.. Have a kernel module (possibly compiled in) that does checksums all your major binaries before booting and warns you when they've changed. Of course, the virus has total kernel access too, so this may not be effective if the author planned for it.
This would make a lot more sense than some story about how if you get all the mp3s and assemble them in the right order and burn to CD it still is recognised as the original.
But that does work. Works very well, in fact.
One of the ways the freedb/cddb protocol recognizes a CD is a hash of the track timings. Like track 1= 1:30.57, track 2= 1:45.13, etc..
You take these, run them thru an algorithim, and get a number out. Then fuzzy search for the number. It works. Very well. The algorithim works in a way that compensates for minor differences. And really, all it takes is for someone else to have the same MP3s that you do. The *vast* majority of albums in these databases is not CD's inserted into a drive, it's a folder full of MP3's.
There's even MP3 tagging programs that will let you do a freedb/cddb search on a folder full of MP3's. "Tag and Rename" is one of them that comes to mind. So if you have a folder with all the songs from an album in it, then all you have to do is put them in the right order and hit the freedb query button to get the tracknames and so on.
It's an executable that the user must RUN to get infected. It then spreads itself via Kazaa and tricking other users into downloading it.
:P
Don't download executables over P2P and you won't get infected. Seems a damn_smart thing to do anyway doesn't it? These people getting hit with it are likely also the same guys who spread e-mail viruses by running attachments.
Actually, if you hold you mouse over it for a second, the alt text of "Photomontage" comes up. Still, they should have made it more obvious.
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Story with pic, BTW, is here http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/newsid_199300