According to Neophytus' links, SCO's insider sales "from the prior quarter to the latest quarter" is just over 2.03 million shares. There are currently 13.85 million shares outstanding, with 0.895 million shares shorted.
I have to wonder if the institutional investors knew the stock price would go up and are trying to ride the wave to the top... but that just means when they sell, the stock will have a spectacular crash.
The BIOS OS integration on the Mac has always been a thing of beauty, and it makes sense that M$ would (after 20 years) start to catch up by now.
Except Apple sells PCs and Microsoft doesn't. Apple also used a customized version of OpenFirmware (stripped down version of Sun's OF, IIRC), while Microsoft is making it's own BIOS. Microsoft isn't catching up, they're trying to drag the whole PC market into their realm of control.
Compiling the whole system from source on-the-fly isn't just for optimization purposes.
Not that the process would be any fun on the platform, of course -- I imagine glibc being an overnight compile, for example -- but it does testify to the strength of the source distribution system's portability.
Perhaps you can explain this to a simple Debian user such as myself...
You say that you can "compile the whole system from source on-the-fly" -- that I can accept, given you have binary for your initial compiler. But having a binary compiler to compile your compiler negates the "advantage" of having a hardware-agnostic boot disk, as you need to have the particular compiler for your hardware first. Sure you could include a compiler for multiple platforms, but then you have the problem of getting that same CD to boot every system.
So what you end up with is a custom CD for your hardware which then compiles the whole system for you. One week later, you're done, and should have used emerge to merge pre-compiled binary packages. But if you're doing that, why not use Debian or RedHat? You could have just used a "binary" distribution and just downloaded the final product (which in most cases is smaller than the source tarballs).
I understand that there's a certain level of bragging rights when you compiled your system from "scratch" (if you can call it that with Gentoo), and there is the assertion that you're now running an "optimized" OS, but is it really worth it for most users? Do they notice the 0.1% increase in speed? I doubt it. One would be better off compiling the specific apps which actually need the extra speed, and spending the time they save learning some new Linux skills.
I guess I just don't understand what the all the excitement about Gentoo is... it just seems like Debian with a different packaging system (and slightly different release schedules). It seems like Gentoo is the new Slackware... many users run it because "someone said it was cool" but not because of any inherent superiority. I ran Slackware because I wanted to learn the "real" way to run a Linux system (CLI only), and then I moved up to Debian when I got tired of recompiling packages.
Errr...maybe because Microsoft CERTIFIED the buggy driver?
The point is that the original poster was complaining that Windows Update installed a driver which caused problems for the system. What said poster did not mention was that Automatic Updates only installs security updates (or what Microsoft calls "critical" updates). The ATI driver is in a separate section on the Windows Update site, and it is not even a "recommended" update. If the original poster is trying to bash Microsoft because of Windows Updates, they chose a poor example. While I agree that Microsoft shouldn't have certified a faulty driver, that is not relevant to the RPC vulnerability (and subsequent security update) announced today.
someone named xXxh4x0rj3et0xXx told me to open the start button click run and type rmdir/s and I did because he seemed to know a lot about MS.
That reminds me when I used to play FPS games on public servers... there'd always be someone who would say, "so-and-so is using the Control-Q cheat!" or "so-and-so cheated with the F10 hack" etc.
Of course, on Unreal/Americas Army/etc, F10 was the "disconnect from server" button (IIRC), and of course Control-Q quit the game. It was quite amusing to see the number of people who immediately disconnected, because they couldn't help but see if they too could use that cheat.;)
It was either that or die, as I recall. They didn't have the greatest of times in the dot-boom.
It may not have been the sex-crazed parties at Enron, but IBM survived the dot-boom, which is more than can be said for many companies (startups or otherwise).
If you read some of the IBM annual reports after the dot-boom, IBM claimed that they were suprised their stock was so low, as they were doing as well, if not better, than years prior. They also announced large stock buybacks. Clearly, the market was depressed (or is that "recessed") and so were the stock prices, but was the low stock price due to business woes at IBM?
Has anyone written a FT/Kazaa client that generates fake download listings?
For example, you search for "Metallica" and my Kazaa/FT client generates a fake listing (from some source list of Metallica songs I guess), and "offers" these songs to download. You try to download them, and you get added to the queue, but never successfully start the download. Thus the RIAA would try to prosecute you, but you have no actual files for share (although it would appear you have a large number of legitimate files available).
I'm downloading AC/DC's Back in Black. My first one got stolen out of my car, and my second one is so scratched up as to be unlistenable.
Actually, this would be a good way to "legalize" your music. Call up your friends, record stores, etc, and buy all their damaged CDs/tapes/lps/etc. Now you own the music and your get your fair use rights.
The best part is this:
You're buying on the used market so the RIAA doesn't get any new income from the sale! And you can probably get a great deal because all you want is the "license" to the song.
this will be great when someone quietly locks 10 years worth of documents he created before getting laid off... a week later, after his Win* user ID has been deleted, his boss will loooooove the new DRM features implemented by Microsoft.
Window's EFS has a recovery key so an "administrator" can recover the files. In a simple networked environment, this would typically be the domain Administrator, or anyone else the admins designate. These users can unencrypt (and thus read/recover) a deleted user's files. I would guess that IRM-protected files would be recoverable through a similar method.
If, by some chance, a DDOS attack is launched against a company's 'Rights Management Server' (which MUST be exposed to the 'net), or it is otherwise hacked into and shut down, then ALL of the documents with this 'feature' in them will cease to function.
Well, there is always VPN access or dialup.
I wonder how mobile users will access these documents when they have no internet connectivity.
What is most interesting is that Microsoft can release their documents as DRM'ed and then watch their own right servers as you and I log in to read them. I would assume they can use this like logging HTTP traffic; allow access to everyone but still require everyone to connect to open the document. Then you can parse the logs and see who is connecting, how often, etc.
He is guaranteeing that no one is using the blacklist. That way it can't be misused by someone hijacking it, or just left in place by someone who doesn't care.
Actually that was exactly what I thought happend when I dealt with my Sendmail servers this morning.
For a few minutes, I entertained the idea that the original owner had let the domain expire accidentally, and a spammer who had been blacklisted by Osirusoft sniped the domain, quickly setting up a DNSBL list to cause problems for everyone who used Osirosft. Thus admins everywhere remove Osirusoft from their DNSBLs and said spammer is (hopefully) free to spew their message without fear of blacklisting.
Clearly, there would be flaws in this spammers' plan (I use multiple DNSBLs), but that wouldn't be the first time spammers didn't think something all the way through.;)
It's not that I don't try to ignore the problems and simply enjoy the movie. The errors are simply so huge I just... can't.
What's worse is that most movies try rediculously hard to "cover up" the fact that their plot depends heavily on this suspension of disbelief. Normally that's fine, but layers upon layers of idiocy make it that much harder to accept the pseudo-science that's used to explain away the inconsistencies.
Star Wars doesn't try to explain the physics behind their method of space flight; it simply exists. The movie drops you in at a point which no prior explanations are necessary... the characters believe it and understand it so the audience is able to accept it as is. It's when the movie needs to "explain" things to the audience that suspension of disbelief becomes near-impossible.
That being said, there were some holes in both Matrix movies.
"Reloaded" was a disappointment to me. "The Matrix" was interesting, but "Reloaded" seemed to be trying far too hard to keep the pseudo-philosophy in the forefront (while the philosphy sounded good, there was nothing groundbreaking; it was simply rehashing stuff that anyone would think up on their own if they cared to do so). Then the suggestion at the end that there was a "matrix within the matrix" was, frankly, offensive.
Now why do I care at all about the characters? And how many matrices are within the "master matrix"? I'm expecting the final movie to show us that this whole complicated matrix "reality" is just part of a computer sim on some 3rd-grader's PC in the year 3021; in other words, no one is real.
I get the whole "what is real" crap, but if you want anyone to take the movie seriously, you need to decide that something is real, or no one is going to gie a rat's ass when Trinity dies and Neo decides to save her instead of the matrix.
Consider this: perhaps owing to the ubiquity of space combat in the Star Wars universe, every starship contains a synthesizer system combined with radar which senses ships in the vicinity, explosions, and blaster trails, and generates a surround-sound representation of all within the cockpit, to aid the pilot in dodging and maneuvering.
Well, that's cool, but how does the latest 50 Cent single sound on that system when you're cruisin' looking for space-babes?
Sorry, don't believe that. A few locations in memory are easier to change than thousands of paper ballots. Hanging chads notwithstanding...
Well here in San Francisco, quite a few boxes of ballots regarding the 49ers new stadium ended up in the Pacific Ocean. While electronic voting definitely has it's potentials for misuse and voter fraud, there are a variety of other tactics available to criminals.
With that said, I do believe an open system, with a yearly code review (by different programmers each year) would be prudent.
Doing clean-room development is plenty good for avoiding potential trouble, but it is not a requirement of any sort (more like a sterilized man using a condom).
Well, if we're talking about viral infections, a sterlized man using a condom is more prudent than redundant.
Better drivers where? Windows? Linux?... They will be working very close with Microsoft to get the performance they need.
Let's be honest here... ATI works closely with Microsoft already. I'm no video expert but I would expect both ATI and nVidia help Microsoft design the specs for the next revision of DirectX (for example). I think it's unlikely Microsoft is "hiding" something from ATI right now.
Here's what you can expect to happen... ATI will make and design most of the video hardware, adjust per Microsoft's desires (backwards compatibility for XBox v1 perhaps), and then Microsoft will write the drivers. If ATI writes the drivers for XBox it's bad news.
Thereby facilitating a new form of social selection in humans, whereby our computers automatically figure out whether we are meant to fall in love, be friends, etc.
Hmm, well maybe you want some sex-deprived geek writing the code to determine if you score with the gorgeous woman walking towards you. I think I'll use more "traditional" methods (social interaction, for example), because, frankly, if I were coding that particular app, I would "adjust" the app in my favor.
At least theoretically, shouldn't WHQL-certified drivers alleviate the "driver-related crash" problems? Granted, most of the latest drivers are not certified prior to release.
But I would guess that application crashes are the result of Microsoft not discouraging users from running as Administrator, or too many programs installing as system services or running as NTAUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Without elevated priveleges, a "user-level" crash might knock out Explorer.exe, but a crash of an app with elevated priveleges would be more likely to take out a neighboring process (like RPC:)).
It's bloody hard to compete against free software and I'm actually amazed to see them try this approach instead of their usual media contamination methods.
Oh, heh, for a minute I thought you were talking about Netscape's view of Microsoft releasing IE for free.
But after the message is recieved, and the connection dropped, have another mechanism connect to the senders server (from the MX in DNS), asking if it sent this MD5SUM(message)
Hmm, now you might be onto something...
How about a built-in Razor-like/DNSBL-like check?
Prior to sending the message, the sender calculates a md5sum (or maybe something like Hash Cash) of the message body. This is sent prior to the DATA phase (eg, MD5SUM: blah, 250 OK, DATA, etc), and is the md5sum of the message. If the message doesn't match the md5sum provided, reject the message. But we can also do a Razor-like check (or DNSBL-like check) on the md5sum to see if it is a known, blacklisted message sum. This way, if you know you don't want the message, you reject the connection before the sender has a chance to send you the entire body and headers of the message. Hopefully, this will add a slight cost to the sender as well (but it could adversely affect a server receiving many messages as well).
Those of you who have visited the X-Plane site have no doubt found the article, but here's a quick bit for everyone else...
So what sort of planes can fly on Mars? Not anything from Earth, that's for sure. Not enough lift or thrust. A Cessna or Boeing will just sit there on the ground without even moving. Put them in the air and they drop like beveled bricks with no wings. Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air) one with a HUGE high-bypass jet engine built AROUND THE FUSELAGE, and another with a smaller rocket engine in the tail, like the X-15. The rocket plane has a lower-thrust engine, with plenty of fuel, for about 30 minutes of flight or so... the JET plane can fly for hours!
Article link (you'll have to try to ignore the excessive use of ALL CAPS)
I've always thought X-Plane was cool, but after reading this article I was convinced... and that's when I read the article well over a year ago!
Slashdot Mirror
Well, what if someone runs a BIOS that doesn't have USB support to change its settings.
The whole point is that these are new systems; the BIOS will support USB keyboards out of the box.
Most new systems in the past two years (and probably more) have supported USB keyboards in the BIOS without requiring the user to change any options.
The only issue that you might run across is using a USB keyboard to power up the system... I haven't had a chance to test this functionality.
According to Neophytus' links, SCO's insider sales "from the prior quarter to the latest quarter" is just over 2.03 million shares. There are currently 13.85 million shares outstanding, with 0.895 million shares shorted.
I have to wonder if the institutional investors knew the stock price would go up and are trying to ride the wave to the top... but that just means when they sell, the stock will have a spectacular crash.
The BIOS OS integration on the Mac has always been a thing of beauty, and it makes sense that M$ would (after 20 years) start to catch up by now.
Except Apple sells PCs and Microsoft doesn't. Apple also used a customized version of OpenFirmware (stripped down version of Sun's OF, IIRC), while Microsoft is making it's own BIOS. Microsoft isn't catching up, they're trying to drag the whole PC market into their realm of control.
Compiling the whole system from source on-the-fly isn't just for optimization purposes.
Not that the process would be any fun on the platform, of course -- I imagine glibc being an overnight compile, for example -- but it does testify to the strength of the source distribution system's portability.
Perhaps you can explain this to a simple Debian user such as myself...
You say that you can "compile the whole system from source on-the-fly" -- that I can accept, given you have binary for your initial compiler. But having a binary compiler to compile your compiler negates the "advantage" of having a hardware-agnostic boot disk, as you need to have the particular compiler for your hardware first. Sure you could include a compiler for multiple platforms, but then you have the problem of getting that same CD to boot every system.
So what you end up with is a custom CD for your hardware which then compiles the whole system for you. One week later, you're done, and should have used emerge to merge pre-compiled binary packages. But if you're doing that, why not use Debian or RedHat? You could have just used a "binary" distribution and just downloaded the final product (which in most cases is smaller than the source tarballs).
I understand that there's a certain level of bragging rights when you compiled your system from "scratch" (if you can call it that with Gentoo), and there is the assertion that you're now running an "optimized" OS, but is it really worth it for most users? Do they notice the 0.1% increase in speed? I doubt it. One would be better off compiling the specific apps which actually need the extra speed, and spending the time they save learning some new Linux skills.
I guess I just don't understand what the all the excitement about Gentoo is... it just seems like Debian with a different packaging system (and slightly different release schedules). It seems like Gentoo is the new Slackware... many users run it because "someone said it was cool" but not because of any inherent superiority. I ran Slackware because I wanted to learn the "real" way to run a Linux system (CLI only), and then I moved up to Debian when I got tired of recompiling packages.
Errr...maybe because Microsoft CERTIFIED the buggy driver?
The point is that the original poster was complaining that Windows Update installed a driver which caused problems for the system. What said poster did not mention was that Automatic Updates only installs security updates (or what Microsoft calls "critical" updates). The ATI driver is in a separate section on the Windows Update site, and it is not even a "recommended" update. If the original poster is trying to bash Microsoft because of Windows Updates, they chose a poor example. While I agree that Microsoft shouldn't have certified a faulty driver, that is not relevant to the RPC vulnerability (and subsequent security update) announced today.
someone named xXxh4x0rj3et0xXx told me to open the start button click run and type rmdir /s and I did because he seemed to know a lot about MS.
;)
That reminds me when I used to play FPS games on public servers... there'd always be someone who would say, "so-and-so is using the Control-Q cheat!" or "so-and-so cheated with the F10 hack" etc.
Of course, on Unreal/Americas Army/etc, F10 was the "disconnect from server" button (IIRC), and of course Control-Q quit the game. It was quite amusing to see the number of people who immediately disconnected, because they couldn't help but see if they too could use that cheat.
It was either that or die, as I recall. They didn't have the greatest of times in the dot-boom.
It may not have been the sex-crazed parties at Enron, but IBM survived the dot-boom, which is more than can be said for many companies (startups or otherwise).
If you read some of the IBM annual reports after the dot-boom, IBM claimed that they were suprised their stock was so low, as they were doing as well, if not better, than years prior. They also announced large stock buybacks. Clearly, the market was depressed (or is that "recessed") and so were the stock prices, but was the low stock price due to business woes at IBM?
Has anyone written a FT/Kazaa client that generates fake download listings?
For example, you search for "Metallica" and my Kazaa/FT client generates a fake listing (from some source list of Metallica songs I guess), and "offers" these songs to download. You try to download them, and you get added to the queue, but never successfully start the download. Thus the RIAA would try to prosecute you, but you have no actual files for share (although it would appear you have a large number of legitimate files available).
So one could setup honeypots for the RIAA...
I'm downloading AC/DC's Back in Black. My first one got stolen out of my car, and my second one is so scratched up as to be unlistenable.
Actually, this would be a good way to "legalize" your music. Call up your friends, record stores, etc, and buy all their damaged CDs/tapes/lps/etc. Now you own the music and your get your fair use rights.
The best part is this:
You're buying on the used market so the RIAA doesn't get any new income from the sale! And you can probably get a great deal because all you want is the "license" to the song.
this will be great when someone quietly locks 10 years worth of documents he created before getting laid off... a week later, after his Win* user ID has been deleted, his boss will loooooove the new DRM features implemented by Microsoft.
Window's EFS has a recovery key so an "administrator" can recover the files. In a simple networked environment, this would typically be the domain Administrator, or anyone else the admins designate. These users can unencrypt (and thus read/recover) a deleted user's files. I would guess that IRM-protected files would be recoverable through a similar method.
If, by some chance, a DDOS attack is launched against a company's 'Rights Management Server' (which MUST be exposed to the 'net), or it is otherwise hacked into and shut down, then ALL of the documents with this 'feature' in them will cease to function.
Well, there is always VPN access or dialup.
I wonder how mobile users will access these documents when they have no internet connectivity.
What is most interesting is that Microsoft can release their documents as DRM'ed and then watch their own right servers as you and I log in to read them. I would assume they can use this like logging HTTP traffic; allow access to everyone but still require everyone to connect to open the document. Then you can parse the logs and see who is connecting, how often, etc.
He is guaranteeing that no one is using the blacklist. That way it can't be misused by someone hijacking it, or just left in place by someone who doesn't care.
;)
Actually that was exactly what I thought happend when I dealt with my Sendmail servers this morning.
For a few minutes, I entertained the idea that the original owner had let the domain expire accidentally, and a spammer who had been blacklisted by Osirusoft sniped the domain, quickly setting up a DNSBL list to cause problems for everyone who used Osirosft. Thus admins everywhere remove Osirusoft from their DNSBLs and said spammer is (hopefully) free to spew their message without fear of blacklisting.
Clearly, there would be flaws in this spammers' plan (I use multiple DNSBLs), but that wouldn't be the first time spammers didn't think something all the way through.
It's not that I don't try to ignore the problems and simply enjoy the movie. The errors are simply so huge I just... can't.
What's worse is that most movies try rediculously hard to "cover up" the fact that their plot depends heavily on this suspension of disbelief. Normally that's fine, but layers upon layers of idiocy make it that much harder to accept the pseudo-science that's used to explain away the inconsistencies.
Star Wars doesn't try to explain the physics behind their method of space flight; it simply exists. The movie drops you in at a point which no prior explanations are necessary... the characters believe it and understand it so the audience is able to accept it as is. It's when the movie needs to "explain" things to the audience that suspension of disbelief becomes near-impossible.
That being said, there were some holes in both Matrix movies.
"Reloaded" was a disappointment to me. "The Matrix" was interesting, but "Reloaded" seemed to be trying far too hard to keep the pseudo-philosophy in the forefront (while the philosphy sounded good, there was nothing groundbreaking; it was simply rehashing stuff that anyone would think up on their own if they cared to do so). Then the suggestion at the end that there was a "matrix within the matrix" was, frankly, offensive.
Now why do I care at all about the characters? And how many matrices are within the "master matrix"? I'm expecting the final movie to show us that this whole complicated matrix "reality" is just part of a computer sim on some 3rd-grader's PC in the year 3021; in other words, no one is real.
I get the whole "what is real" crap, but if you want anyone to take the movie seriously, you need to decide that something is real, or no one is going to gie a rat's ass when Trinity dies and Neo decides to save her instead of the matrix.
Consider this: perhaps owing to the ubiquity of space combat in the Star Wars universe, every starship contains a synthesizer system combined with radar which senses ships in the vicinity, explosions, and blaster trails, and generates a surround-sound representation of all within the cockpit, to aid the pilot in dodging and maneuvering.
Well, that's cool, but how does the latest 50 Cent single sound on that system when you're cruisin' looking for space-babes?
Sorry, don't believe that. A few locations in memory are easier to change than thousands of paper ballots. Hanging chads notwithstanding...
Well here in San Francisco, quite a few boxes of ballots regarding the 49ers new stadium ended up in the Pacific Ocean. While electronic voting definitely has it's potentials for misuse and voter fraud, there are a variety of other tactics available to criminals.
With that said, I do believe an open system, with a yearly code review (by different programmers each year) would be prudent.
Doing clean-room development is plenty good for avoiding potential trouble, but it is not a requirement of any sort (more like a sterilized man using a condom).
Well, if we're talking about viral infections, a sterlized man using a condom is more prudent than redundant.
Better drivers where? Windows? Linux? ... They will be working very close with Microsoft to get the performance they need.
Let's be honest here... ATI works closely with Microsoft already. I'm no video expert but I would expect both ATI and nVidia help Microsoft design the specs for the next revision of DirectX (for example). I think it's unlikely Microsoft is "hiding" something from ATI right now.
Here's what you can expect to happen... ATI will make and design most of the video hardware, adjust per Microsoft's desires (backwards compatibility for XBox v1 perhaps), and then Microsoft will write the drivers. If ATI writes the drivers for XBox it's bad news.
Thereby facilitating a new form of social selection in humans, whereby our computers automatically figure out whether we are meant to fall in love, be friends, etc.
Hmm, well maybe you want some sex-deprived geek writing the code to determine if you score with the gorgeous woman walking towards you. I think I'll use more "traditional" methods (social interaction, for example), because, frankly, if I were coding that particular app, I would "adjust" the app in my favor.
At least theoretically, shouldn't WHQL-certified drivers alleviate the "driver-related crash" problems? Granted, most of the latest drivers are not certified prior to release.
:)).
But I would guess that application crashes are the result of Microsoft not discouraging users from running as Administrator, or too many programs installing as system services or running as NTAUTHORITY\SYSTEM. Without elevated priveleges, a "user-level" crash might knock out Explorer.exe, but a crash of an app with elevated priveleges would be more likely to take out a neighboring process (like RPC
It's bloody hard to compete against free software and I'm actually amazed to see them try this approach instead of their usual media contamination methods.
Oh, heh, for a minute I thought you were talking about Netscape's view of Microsoft releasing IE for free.
But after the message is recieved, and the connection dropped, have another mechanism connect to the senders server (from the MX in DNS), asking if it sent this MD5SUM(message)
Hmm, now you might be onto something...
How about a built-in Razor-like/DNSBL-like check?
Prior to sending the message, the sender calculates a md5sum (or maybe something like Hash Cash) of the message body. This is sent prior to the DATA phase (eg, MD5SUM: blah, 250 OK, DATA, etc), and is the md5sum of the message. If the message doesn't match the md5sum provided, reject the message. But we can also do a Razor-like check (or DNSBL-like check) on the md5sum to see if it is a known, blacklisted message sum. This way, if you know you don't want the message, you reject the connection before the sender has a chance to send you the entire body and headers of the message. Hopefully, this will add a slight cost to the sender as well (but it could adversely affect a server receiving many messages as well).
Gee, if nobody pays for libraries, I wonder where they get the money to build them, staff them, and fill them with copyrighted material...
<sarcasm>
That's easy... if I don't pay for it, the government pays for it!
</sarcasm>
Those of you who have visited the X-Plane site have no doubt found the article, but here's a quick bit for everyone else...
So what sort of planes can fly on Mars? Not anything from Earth, that's for sure. Not enough lift or thrust. A Cessna or Boeing will just sit there on the ground without even moving. Put them in the air and they drop like beveled bricks with no wings. Both of my Mars-plane concepts are much like the U-2 Spyplane (designed to operate at around 100,000 ft, in simlar density air) one with a HUGE high-bypass jet engine built AROUND THE FUSELAGE, and another with a smaller rocket engine in the tail, like the X-15. The rocket plane has a lower-thrust engine, with plenty of fuel, for about 30 minutes of flight or so... the JET plane can fly for hours!
Article link (you'll have to try to ignore the excessive use of ALL CAPS)
I've always thought X-Plane was cool, but after reading this article I was convinced... and that's when I read the article well over a year ago!
I see you are trying to bomb a country. Would you like help?
Let's just hope that it's not the "genius" assistant offering help designing/deploying this bomb...