There's some bad things about it too. The game is way to short and actually pretty simple to finish. I played it through in less than a week (on "recruit", granted) playing only a couple of hours a day. I completed each level perfectly (all objectives, no lost men).
I too would like more silenced weapons. I don't remember how many specialists had silenced weapons, but it was something like three or four, tops? Maybe they should have allowed any soldier to carry any gun, but give penalties when the soldier isn't carrying his weapon of choice. (might not be realistic, but this is a game -- it's about fun, not realism. I get really annoyed with the realism-wanking going on in the R6/GR communities).
Though on that note, I do wish that one could fire through walls with those high-powered rifles. Door work, walls don't. Irritating.
I'd rather the game was a little more like Operaion Flashpoint, where the game isn't completely linear. That is, if you fail a mission (to a certain degree) you'll be allowed to continue the campain, but it might actually have ramifications later on.
Too bad OPF was a good idea implemented pretty badly (multiplayer is completely butched by broken design -- too large gamestate to allow 'drop in' gaming, according to the developers. Too many 'coders', too few 'software-engineers' I guess.)
There is no linux dedicated server besides (for either game). I won't comment on multiplayer, but it's a fair single-player game, though way too short for my liking.
(any of these things may have been fixed since I last played the game)
Writing a real, functioning virus that still matches the same signature would be, well, impossible for all intents and purposes.
Not that you'd have to, in my guestimate. The FBI will probably want to be able to change their code without breaking this checksum, so the block to be checksummed will be static across versions. Anyone who breaks the checksum will "only" have to place it so that McAfee reads it like it would the real thing, probably at some given relative offset with a given length (which can be reverse-engineered out of the executable).
So you'd have for instance [exe-header] [host] [garbage-that-hashes-correctly] [virus body]
The only other scheme I can think of now is that they'd update McAfee with ever more checksums, which would be..um.. bad. Then we'd slowly approach the birthday-paradox, bla, bla, bla.
And really, I think you give them too much credit. There's lot's of ways to butch this up, and McAfee... well, let's just say I was a TBAV-user back in the days.
I downloaded four 1m30s clips from their(?) site. Not my cup of tea exactly, but I'd really have to listen to a whole album (or at least complete songs) to be able to tell.
Tried In Flames (They've changed over time from death to more plain metal -- somewhat like Paradise Lost. I like the middle albums the most, like _Whoracle_ (try 'Gyroscope') and _Colony_ ('Ordinary story' is great IMHO). Their latest release is a live album from Japan, which really isn't all that good unfortunately. I've recorded a gig they did for our public radio, P3, which is way better) and/or Dark Tranquillity, whose album _Haven_ is very nice.
For some reason I'm fond of Darkseed which is a german hard rock/metal band, too. Try 'Self pity sick'
It was my baby (and a friend of mine who I brought in on a consulting basis -- he needed a new computer:-) all the way. And the point isn't really that he didn't give out _my_ name, I really don't care about that, the point is he just took one off the top of his head!
How about "I don't know, let me check.." or "That's none of your business" (or words to that effect).
(QA is a process between developers, project managers and customers -- we don't have a special QA dep. here)
When a customer rang a PHB and wanted to know who built the new system - of which they were quite impressed - he gave them the name of a guy who scanned, cropped and resized some graphics for it.
The KT7 won't fly at all, or won't be stable. Sorry.
I've got a KT7A-RAID myself, and the Palominos aren't supported on card revisions <1.3. I was planning to get a palomino, but I have a v1.0 board. Bleeech.
It's reverse-engineering all the way. I know this because I've been doing a little of it myself for the old original-SCUMMs (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken).
Check the code if you don't believe me, you don't produce code (or identifiers) like that below from reimplementing something the clean way:
if (dseg_4F8A) {
screenEffect(_newEffect);
dseg_4F8A = 0;
clearClickedStatus();
}
The documentation he provides is interesting. However, one thing really irritated me as I browsed the site, and that was the following paragraph from his overview under "Why is the Erasmatron better?":
Better than what? There simply isn't anything out
there that lets you create interactive storytelling. (And if there
were, they'd have to
work around my comprehensive patent.)
My emphasis.
I have no problem with defensive patents, but he's basically saying that he wants to make sure no one else can use similar technology to write even better games (which would benefit players/human kind).
At the risk of drawing hasty conclusions on how he will use his patent(s); I just cannot respect that.
(I actually considered buying his book, but that will not happen now).
Though I wonder at the language: "Among the updates included in this package are several that eliminate security vulnerabilities." (my emphasis). Call me paranoid, but seeing how IE is such an intergral part of the OS it's quite possible that this fix is a bundle with a whole slew of other fixes in it. That is, the problem described is only one of several actual problems. The old "Quick, look here!"-thing.
In related news, reports are pouring in that the update in question really screws the system up in a variety of ways (lends support to my hypothesis:-). Anyway, looks like they rushed it.
Maybe it's you that haven't got a clue about large scale development? I'm not sure how time is allocated for security auditing in your scheme, but in my world it'd be nice if for a large new OS - first release - there'd have to pass at least a month under which time no security problems are found in order for the RC to pass.
If MS had such a period, which I've set at a month quite arbitrary, but something similar, then I have no problem with a patch. You've got to draw the line somewhere. This would say "We've given it our best. We've thrown everything at it. We're reasonably sure we won't have to patch it the day it ships."
However, I suspect the line was drawn at a specific date which says "Let's just get this crap out the door and earn a quick buck, we can always patch it later".
Windows XP Update Package, October 25, 2001- Download size: 1.9 MB - This update resolves all critical issues that were found in Windows XP between August 2001 and October 2001, and is discussed in Microsoft Knowledge Base (KB)
Article Q309521. Among the updates included in this package are several that eliminate security vulnerabilities. Download now to ensure that you have all the latest critical updates for Windows XP.
You'd think they'd at least hold onto the last release-candidate for a month or so to make sure no critical issues come up, before making it a master and sending it off to be pressed, no?
Hello there Beale Screamer. I just want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your recent work, which was great. Keep up the good work, and stay low.
As a non-scientist/researcher I think this is great! I very much enjoy reading all kinds of papers (though mostly comp-sci), and while there are many many available at no cost for a person like me -- I'm not in school so I don't have access to papers and journals that way, so electronic distribution is basically the only way -- there are some papers that I've been unable to find online (and a lot of articles, of course).
Now, if only The ACM could open up a little for us of 'the little people'. Who knows, maybe I'd pay up and join after experiencing their electronic library first hand.
I seriously question the science of SETI@home. I left them after one of the first debacles where they kept sending out the same packet of data to most everyone.
I've had two IBM-drives, both ~40Gb -- one 75GXP and one 60GXP -- for about a year now. The 75GXP was at first emitting very annoying klonk-klonk sounds which sounded very bad (like the arm slamming out, hard), but I soon discovered that changing the speed of my FSB made the problem go away.
Well, either that or it fixed itself, because I haven't had a problem since. It's weird though because I weren't exactly overclocking the bus, only running it at 113MHz (it should do 133MHz no problem, but I have a locked Duron 800. Maybe I'll try and pencil it some day, but I digress.)
I think there might well have been a problem with the 75-series, but I'm gonna pick me up another 60GXP soon. Also, were can we find many of these complaints? At places where the writers overclock like crazy and do all kinds of insane things to their systems (using rounded ATA-cabling for instance). These things may 'catalyze' the problem with the 75-series (which might be a good thing, depending on how you see it).
Oh, that song wasn't even included on the american version of their album Deaf Dumb Blind. I forget.
Check the lyrics out though (link above)
Another song of theirs is pretty relevant now, as ever, and that is Two sides (from the 1997 self-titled album). I think that's the only song where after hearing it I thought... "where do I sign?"
But "no cooling" is not the same as having a fan stop -- as mentioned in the newsblurb -- but having the cooling block itself remain in place. I myself would hope that should my fan die (and it will, and I won't be here -- Murphy), that the CPU will at least survive until I get home to find it hung.
It is a long read for the weak, but it clear and to the point as to why "laws" such as the DMCA is a bad idea, giving a short history of copyright and a summary of recent events in the world of IP/DRM. I believe it can help people focus their arguments.
Slashdot Mirror
There's some bad things about it too. The game is way to short and actually pretty simple to finish. I played it through in less than a week (on "recruit", granted) playing only a couple of hours a day. I completed each level perfectly (all objectives, no lost men).
I too would like more silenced weapons. I don't remember how many specialists had silenced weapons, but it was something like three or four, tops? Maybe they should have allowed any soldier to carry any gun, but give penalties when the soldier isn't carrying his weapon of choice. (might not be realistic, but this is a game -- it's about fun, not realism. I get really annoyed with the realism-wanking going on in the R6/GR communities).
Though on that note, I do wish that one could fire through walls with those high-powered rifles. Door work, walls don't. Irritating.
I'd rather the game was a little more like Operaion Flashpoint, where the game isn't completely linear. That is, if you fail a mission (to a certain degree) you'll be allowed to continue the campain, but it might actually have ramifications later on.
Too bad OPF was a good idea implemented pretty badly (multiplayer is completely butched by broken design -- too large gamestate to allow 'drop in' gaming, according to the developers. Too many 'coders', too few 'software-engineers' I guess.)
There is no linux dedicated server besides (for either game). I won't comment on multiplayer, but it's a fair single-player game, though way too short for my liking.
(any of these things may have been fixed since I last played the game)
Not new, but still the very best of the best: Planescape: Torment and Baldur's Gate 2.
Not that you'd have to, in my guestimate. The FBI will probably want to be able to change their code without breaking this checksum, so the block to be checksummed will be static across versions. Anyone who breaks the checksum will "only" have to place it so that McAfee reads it like it would the real thing, probably at some given relative offset with a given length (which can be reverse-engineered out of the executable).
So you'd have for instance [exe-header] [host] [garbage-that-hashes-correctly] [virus body]
The only other scheme I can think of now is that they'd update McAfee with ever more checksums, which would be..um.. bad. Then we'd slowly approach the birthday-paradox, bla, bla, bla.
And really, I think you give them too much credit. There's lot's of ways to butch this up, and McAfee... well, let's just say I was a TBAV-user back in the days.
I downloaded four 1m30s clips from their(?) site. Not my cup of tea exactly, but I'd really have to listen to a whole album (or at least complete songs) to be able to tell.
Tried In Flames (They've changed over time from death to more plain metal -- somewhat like Paradise Lost. I like the middle albums the most, like _Whoracle_ (try 'Gyroscope') and _Colony_ ('Ordinary story' is great IMHO). Their latest release is a live album from Japan, which really isn't all that good unfortunately. I've recorded a gig they did for our public radio, P3, which is way better) and/or Dark Tranquillity, whose album _Haven_ is very nice.
For some reason I'm fond of Darkseed which is a german hard rock/metal band, too. Try 'Self pity sick'
Ah, metal. The energy. Have a good one.
No. QA department? What's that? :-)
It was my baby (and a friend of mine who I brought in on a consulting basis -- he needed a new computer :-) all the way. And the point isn't really that he didn't give out _my_ name, I really don't care about that, the point is he just took one off the top of his head!
How about "I don't know, let me check.." or "That's none of your business" (or words to that effect).
(QA is a process between developers, project managers and customers -- we don't have a special QA dep. here)
When a customer rang a PHB and wanted to know who built the new system - of which they were quite impressed - he gave them the name of a guy who scanned, cropped and resized some graphics for it.
Hey, I'm only the programmer...
The KT7 won't fly at all, or won't be stable. Sorry.
I've got a KT7A-RAID myself, and the Palominos aren't supported on card revisions <1.3. I was planning to get a palomino, but I have a v1.0 board. Bleeech.
It's reverse-engineering all the way. I know this because I've been doing a little of it myself for the old original-SCUMMs (Maniac Mansion, Zak McKracken).
Check the code if you don't believe me, you don't produce code (or identifiers) like that below from reimplementing something the clean way:
Good work, Ludvig.
My first dist was slackware, way back. I used slackware exclusively up till a couple of years ago, when I switched to apt-^H^H^H^Hdebian.
The documentation he provides is interesting. However, one thing really irritated me as I browsed the site, and that was the following paragraph from his overview under "Why is the Erasmatron better?":
My emphasis.
I have no problem with defensive patents, but he's basically saying that he wants to make sure no one else can use similar technology to write even better games (which would benefit players/human kind).
At the risk of drawing hasty conclusions on how he will use his patent(s); I just cannot respect that.
(I actually considered buying his book, but that will not happen now).
Sucks to be him.
Though I wonder at the language: "Among the updates included in this package are several that eliminate security vulnerabilities." (my emphasis). Call me paranoid, but seeing how IE is such an intergral part of the OS it's quite possible that this fix is a bundle with a whole slew of other fixes in it. That is, the problem described is only one of several actual problems. The old "Quick, look here!"-thing.
In related news, reports are pouring in that the update in question really screws the system up in a variety of ways (lends support to my hypothesis :-). Anyway, looks like they rushed it.
I'm guessing we'll see a new one Real Soon.
Well, there's a well thought out argument.
Maybe it's you that haven't got a clue about large scale development? I'm not sure how time is allocated for security auditing in your scheme, but in my world it'd be nice if for a large new OS - first release - there'd have to pass at least a month under which time no security problems are found in order for the RC to pass.
If MS had such a period, which I've set at a month quite arbitrary, but something similar, then I have no problem with a patch. You've got to draw the line somewhere. This would say "We've given it our best. We've thrown everything at it. We're reasonably sure we won't have to patch it the day it ships."
However, I suspect the line was drawn at a specific date which says "Let's just get this crap out the door and earn a quick buck, we can always patch it later".
I guess Microsoft is showing its commitment to security, because we already have the first critical update for WinXP out.
Citing HardOCP:
You'd think they'd at least hold onto the last release-candidate for a month or so to make sure no critical issues come up, before making it a master and sending it off to be pressed, no?
Hello there Beale Screamer. I just want to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your recent work, which was great. Keep up the good work, and stay low.
eloj bows.
I'm with Shieber on this. Anyone interested in this competition should have read Lessons from a Restricted Turing Test and the answer in In response to lessons from a restricted Turing test (which I found unconvincing, but YMMV).
As a non-scientist/researcher I think this is great! I very much enjoy reading all kinds of papers (though mostly comp-sci), and while there are many many available at no cost for a person like me -- I'm not in school so I don't have access to papers and journals that way, so electronic distribution is basically the only way -- there are some papers that I've been unable to find online (and a lot of articles, of course).
Now, if only The ACM could open up a little for us of 'the little people'. Who knows, maybe I'd pay up and join after experiencing their electronic library first hand.
I seriously question the science of SETI@home. I left them after one of the first debacles where they kept sending out the same packet of data to most everyone.
genome and folding@home just seems so much more likely to be useful.
If you're an atheist (or even if you aren't) you're welcome to join our genome@home team, Wicked Old Atheists. We're currently placed #24 in the world.
I mean 203, not 206. (I was in net 206 for a very long time, old habits die hard and all that).
I'm still on fido (2:206/233), though you'll mostly find me in R20. A nice complement to the larger use[less]net.
I've had two IBM-drives, both ~40Gb -- one 75GXP and one 60GXP -- for about a year now. The 75GXP was at first emitting very annoying klonk-klonk sounds which sounded very bad (like the arm slamming out, hard), but I soon discovered that changing the speed of my FSB made the problem go away.
Well, either that or it fixed itself, because I haven't had a problem since. It's weird though because I weren't exactly overclocking the bus, only running it at 113MHz (it should do 133MHz no problem, but I have a locked Duron 800. Maybe I'll try and pencil it some day, but I digress.)
I think there might well have been a problem with the 75-series, but I'm gonna pick me up another 60GXP soon. Also, were can we find many of these complaints? At places where the writers overclock like crazy and do all kinds of insane things to their systems (using rounded ATA-cabling for instance). These things may 'catalyze' the problem with the 75-series (which might be a good thing, depending on how you see it).
You could press CTRL+X (or ALT+X, don't remember) to bypass it though.
Oh, that song wasn't even included on the american version of their album Deaf Dumb Blind. I forget.
Check the lyrics out though (link above)
Another song of theirs is pretty relevant now, as ever, and that is Two sides (from the 1997 self-titled album). I think that's the only song where after hearing it I thought... "where do I sign?"
But "no cooling" is not the same as having a fan stop -- as mentioned in the newsblurb -- but having the cooling block itself remain in place. I myself would hope that should my fan die (and it will, and I won't be here -- Murphy), that the CPU will at least survive until I get home to find it hung.
I've ranted on this very same topic. Flame on!
"Land of the free? -- On Terrorism, Cryptography and Freedom in the aftermath of WTC"
Many of the issues here are discussed in a recent report:
M. Skala. "New Media Copyright Extensions Would Harm Canada", Aug 2001
It is a long read for the weak, but it clear and to the point as to why "laws" such as the DMCA is a bad idea, giving a short history of copyright and a summary of recent events in the world of IP/DRM. I believe it can help people focus their arguments.