When I was a kid, my friend's mom was a realtor. We learned that when houses were put up for sale, most of the realtors set the dip switches in the garage door openers to a few easy combinations: on,off,on,off,on,etc... or the first half of switches on, the second half off, or vice versa.
Armed with this information, we took a few common brands of garage door opener (Genie, MultiCode, Sears, etc.) and set them to these combinations. We then hopped on our bikes and started riding around the neighborhood clicking the buttons. You wouldn't believe how many garage doors opened.
I sort of drew a parallel between unsecured WAPs and these unsecured garage doors. It was remarkably easy to do. Most people have no clue how to change the dip switches on their garage doors, just like most people have no idea how to change the default SSID, disable SSID broadcasts, and enable encryption.
Because of what I learned about the security (or lack thereof) of the typical garage door opener, I now have a much more secure Linear DX Code receiver controlling my garage, just in case some kids get the same idea I once had.
You mean passengers would want to kill gays and lesbians? Interesting.
Re:What to do about fat?
on
Energizer Mouse
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· Score: 2, Insightful
What America really needs is people who understand that if you eat at McDonald's 5 times a week and don't exercise, you will likely turn into a fat ass.
It has been said a million times already... there is no substitute for proper diet and exercise -- and if there is at some point, I still won't use it. I'd rather have sore limbs from jogging than watch my dick fall off as a side effect of the latest trendy pill. Ugh.
As a current Time Warner Roadrunner customer, I get a consistent 2014 kbps down and 360 kbps up for $44.95 a month. At twice the price, their new offering is far from a good deal.
Of course, with the exception of Salt Lake City, most of the initial launch cities contain a population that typically has more money than brains... I'm sure more than a few morons will bite for that extra megabit just so they can say they have it -- "broadband envy"?
This is such a common misconception. Unless you have a really old shitty microwave that's leaking like a mofo (or a new microwave that's poorly designed), it won't interfere with 2.4GHz equipment.
If your microwave does in fact interfere with your wireless lan equipment, I'd invest in a pair of shielded underwear ASAP.
So I could wait a year and shell out $300+ for a new graphics card that would probably be needed to run this game (I have an "old" GeForce2), or get an Xbox and Halo now for $242.
I'm leaning towards the instant gratification bit...
I had considered the purchase of one of these units (several months ago, indcidentally -- this "news" is kind of old) and did a little homework on it... here's why it sucks, and why I won't buy one:
- Proprietary compression The unit uses Sony's ATRAC compression which is proprietary and heavy on DRM. Even MP3's which you copy from a memory stick to the unit are converted to ATRAC, resulting in loss.
- No direct PC connectivity You can't wire up, say, an ethernet jack to this unit as you could with the Empeg, etc... and copy files to it from your computer. No way. You must either sit in your car and rip (at a paltry 8x) every friggin CD you want into the unit, or use a Memory Stick back and forth from your PC to this unit. An utter waste of time, IMHO.
Pioneer Electronics came out with a unit that is extraordinarly similar yet has a larger, easier to navigate menu system... it still, however, suffers from the same shortcomings as the Sony unit. I am not sure what type of compression Pioneer uses, though.
You mean to tell me that I can go out and spend $300 or more on a box that will actually let me postpone the viewing of the massive piles of horseshit that pass for "entertainment" these days?
I can say without a doubt that when dealing with the Slashdot crowd, $300 would best be spent on a bicycle or a gym membership... or is the next gripping episode of "Buffy" just too good to miss?
If my management caught me asking questions about how to do my job on Slashdot, I'd be shitcanned for sure... Did they in fact interview you before you got this position?!
I like the idea of PDA/Cell phone combos, but only if they reduce the amount of crap one has to schlep around in the long run.
From what I could gather, to use the phone, you MUST plug a headset into the thing. While some people may find it "cool" to have an ugly black cord running from their ear to their pocket all the time, I sure don't. Either that, or you've got to pull the headset out of your pocket, unravel the cord, and stick it in your ear before the party on the other end hangs up.
This reminds me a lot of the Motorola V200 which also suffered from the same shortcoming... but at least it has a speakerphone.
Almost perfect... but not quite.
Re:Ease of copying killed the Dreamcast...
on
Sony vs Modchips
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· Score: 1
I sure as fuck do. I bought a Dreamcast soley due to the fact that I had access to every game image. Plenty of people I know did the same. At one point, we actually needed a bootloader disk, but even that "issue" got worked out with the later releases.
I love watching people flip out about copyright and IP issues by claiming that it's infringing on their personal liberties. Bullshit. It's just infringing on your ability to play stolen software -- the only difference is, I'll actually admit it.
Ease of copying killed the Dreamcast...
on
Sony vs Modchips
·
· Score: 1, Flamebait
Lest we all forget, the fact that copied Dreamcast games could be played WITHOUT a modchip (and that they were easy to copy in the first place) more or less killed this console... I think Sony is just rightfully looking after their best interests.
I've been using XP since it was beta, and I have definitely noticed a few things:
XP is a resource hog, and is way slower than W2K on identical hardware. Is 256MB of RAM just not enough any more? Right now, I have 4 IE windows open, MS Outlook XP, and AIM, and the system reports I'm using 260 megs of RAM. Fucking ridiculous. If I were to try to open anything else with this machine, I'd be subject to 2 minutes of swapfile thrashing. And all this on a 1.8GHz P4.
Weird application problems are common. I and a couple of other people I know cannot use "view source" within IE (or any other MS app for that matter). You click it, nothing happens. Little unexplainable quirks like this happen all the time. Never in W2K.
XP's constant baderging in the Start menu about "New programs installed", pop-up windows when you insert any new media ("What do you want Windows to do with this disk") are borderline offensive to anyone who knows what they're doing. It would be nice if there were an "Expert Mode" switch (perhaps there is and I don't know about it) that would turn off all the prompting and stupid pop-ups.
Even with all of the shadows, gradients, type smoothing and useless fluff turned off, performance is dismal. This has been verified by many somewhat-reputable sources (CNet, Tom's, etc...).
My opinion is that Microsoft took a high-performance sports car of an operating system (at least the best MS has done, anyway) and turned it into a fucking conversion van. I'm over it.
Slashdot Mirror
Armed with this information, we took a few common brands of garage door opener (Genie, MultiCode, Sears, etc.) and set them to these combinations. We then hopped on our bikes and started riding around the neighborhood clicking the buttons. You wouldn't believe how many garage doors opened.
I sort of drew a parallel between unsecured WAPs and these unsecured garage doors. It was remarkably easy to do. Most people have no clue how to change the dip switches on their garage doors, just like most people have no idea how to change the default SSID, disable SSID broadcasts, and enable encryption.
Because of what I learned about the security (or lack thereof) of the typical garage door opener, I now have a much more secure Linear DX Code receiver controlling my garage, just in case some kids get the same idea I once had.
You mean passengers would want to kill gays and lesbians? Interesting.
It has been said a million times already... there is no substitute for proper diet and exercise -- and if there is at some point, I still won't use it. I'd rather have sore limbs from jogging than watch my dick fall off as a side effect of the latest trendy pill. Ugh.
...on rye bread with some mayonnaise.
Of course, with the exception of Salt Lake City, most of the initial launch cities contain a population that typically has more money than brains... I'm sure more than a few morons will bite for that extra megabit just so they can say they have it -- "broadband envy"?
If your microwave does in fact interfere with your wireless lan equipment, I'd invest in a pair of shielded underwear ASAP.
System Technical Overseer, North Eastern Division ("STONED") would be more appropriate in our case...
Their software is also quite riddled... with bugs, anyway.
So I could wait a year and shell out $300+ for a new graphics card that would probably be needed to run this game (I have an "old" GeForce2), or get an Xbox and Halo now for $242.
I'm leaning towards the instant gratification bit...
- Proprietary compression
The unit uses Sony's ATRAC compression which is proprietary and heavy on DRM. Even MP3's which you copy from a memory stick to the unit are converted to ATRAC, resulting in loss.
- No direct PC connectivity
You can't wire up, say, an ethernet jack to this unit as you could with the Empeg, etc... and copy files to it from your computer. No way. You must either sit in your car and rip (at a paltry 8x) every friggin CD you want into the unit, or use a Memory Stick back and forth from your PC to this unit. An utter waste of time, IMHO.
Pioneer Electronics came out with a unit that is extraordinarly similar yet has a larger, easier to navigate menu system... it still, however, suffers from the same shortcomings as the Sony unit. I am not sure what type of compression Pioneer uses, though.
Anyway, my two cents...
You mean to tell me that I can go out and spend $300 or more on a box that will actually let me postpone the viewing of the massive piles of horseshit that pass for "entertainment" these days?
I can say without a doubt that when dealing with the Slashdot crowd, $300 would best be spent on a bicycle or a gym membership... or is the next gripping episode of "Buffy" just too good to miss?
Sheesh...
Why did you need to cut away? Unstable belly fly from excessive slashdot beer gut?
I think these are what you're looking for:
http://www.keypower.com/DC_power/DX-250H.htm
If my management caught me asking questions about how to do my job on Slashdot, I'd be shitcanned for sure... Did they in fact interview you before you got this position?!
I like the idea of PDA/Cell phone combos, but only if they reduce the amount of crap one has to schlep around in the long run.
From what I could gather, to use the phone, you MUST plug a headset into the thing. While some people may find it "cool" to have an ugly black cord running from their ear to their pocket all the time, I sure don't. Either that, or you've got to pull the headset out of your pocket, unravel the cord, and stick it in your ear before the party on the other end hangs up.
This reminds me a lot of the Motorola V200 which also suffered from the same shortcoming... but at least it has a speakerphone.
Almost perfect... but not quite.
I sure as fuck do. I bought a Dreamcast soley due to the fact that I had access to every game image. Plenty of people I know did the same. At one point, we actually needed a bootloader disk, but even that "issue" got worked out with the later releases.
I love watching people flip out about copyright and IP issues by claiming that it's infringing on their personal liberties. Bullshit. It's just infringing on your ability to play stolen software -- the only difference is, I'll actually admit it.
Lest we all forget, the fact that copied Dreamcast games could be played WITHOUT a modchip (and that they were easy to copy in the first place) more or less killed this console... I think Sony is just rightfully looking after their best interests.
I've been using XP since it was beta, and I have definitely noticed a few things:
XP is a resource hog, and is way slower than W2K on identical hardware. Is 256MB of RAM just not enough any more? Right now, I have 4 IE windows open, MS Outlook XP, and AIM, and the system reports I'm using 260 megs of RAM. Fucking ridiculous. If I were to try to open anything else with this machine, I'd be subject to 2 minutes of swapfile thrashing. And all this on a 1.8GHz P4.
Weird application problems are common. I and a couple of other people I know cannot use "view source" within IE (or any other MS app for that matter). You click it, nothing happens. Little unexplainable quirks like this happen all the time. Never in W2K.
XP's constant baderging in the Start menu about "New programs installed", pop-up windows when you insert any new media ("What do you want Windows to do with this disk") are borderline offensive to anyone who knows what they're doing. It would be nice if there were an "Expert Mode" switch (perhaps there is and I don't know about it) that would turn off all the prompting and stupid pop-ups.
Even with all of the shadows, gradients, type smoothing and useless fluff turned off, performance is dismal. This has been verified by many somewhat-reputable sources (CNet, Tom's, etc...).
My opinion is that Microsoft took a high-performance sports car of an operating system (at least the best MS has done, anyway) and turned it into a fucking conversion van. I'm over it.