I'm actually at my best under pressure, provided I know enough of the parameters. Whithout enough experience however I have issues. With too much time I start thinking about to many what-if's and borrowing trouble and nit picking my own decisions.
I know exactly what you mean about how others think being hard to deal with. In area's where I know what I'm doing and the right thing needs to be done NOW I find I have little patience for 'idiots'. I put that in quotes because they're not really idiots(at least usually not), they just don't think like I do and the conflict drives me nuts. I see with crystal clarity the 'right' way to fix something and start to do so, and usually half way through someone tries to push me in a different direction. It's really hard, not to mention frustrating, to explain things that took years of experience to put together into an almost instinctive gestalt when time is short.
I always did well on tests. For one thing I was always told I was smart and didn't worry about it, and later when I could have worried I was used to doing good and still later I didn't particularly care that much anyway.
A friend of mine graduated with an economic major last spring, he's moving to Dc in a couple weeks to for a government job he's been chasing the last several months. Blanking on which 'dept of' he's going to work for (want to say labor, but can't be shure).
He did have the advantage of an income from a minor disability he got in the army, that got him out of the army. It was enough he didn't have to work more than part time while the army paid for his college. His disability is knee related iirc and won't give him major trouble till he's much older.
It's nice money apparently, good luck.
No kidding the set rules way to do everything can be stupidly applied.
I had a math teacher in highschool (freshman iirc, was a while back, could have been the previous year) that insisted every step in solving a problem be shown, so I wrote every step I took. and then got docked on my score for not showing every step, despite getting the right answer almost every time.
I was doing in one step what he thought should be two or three, but to me it was one step and conceptually splitting some of those things was like stoping 3/4 of the way through a step in walking.
His explanation that If I 'skiped' steps (that to me didn't exist) I wouldn't learn and that made no sense.
Now I know some might be tempted to take his side but this was simple arithmetic within basic algebra. His steps literly added complication where it could teach nothing to anyone ready to take the class, and anyone not ready wouldn't be helped by what for everyone else was a diversion from the actual principles and mechanisms in algebra.
Actually that's a common failure of management who can't achieve the same results correctly.
The correct way is to give someone more work (and reward/feedback!) as you observe. If you're doing it right you spot thier limit BEFORE they reach it and keep them at the right level BELOW that limit.
The most efficient point is well below that limit, and is usually fun to be at if you don't outright hate your job.
And absolutely make shure they know when you are pleased with them, feedback is critical, especially when they're doing a good job. And if you don't actually mean it when you give them good feedback then you are screwing up. You honestly have to want them to do well for thier sakes as well as your own or at best your going to be yet another boss, and not a manager nor a leader.
Doesn't fit my experience. Usually I can't do things well one at a time, not enough to keep me thinking clearly.
I'm usually working mostly on one thing while doing background processing on another. If I get stuck in a situation where I can only work on one thing I find it takes me longer (actual as measured by clock, not perceptual) than it would if I was working on that and something else.
Also many/most tasks have natural 'wait' times where you can do something else rather sit and stare at the food cooking, wait on hold, etc.
Of course In my case and some others it may be related to having ADD. Though I've also known people who can't task switch well, and certainly can't do a good 'context' retrieval when returning to a partially finished task.
My father once commented the most effective/successfull people he's ever met where those who could stop some task in mid stream and completely switch to totaly focus on something new that needed imediate attention and then switch completely back as if un-interupted. Both switches without any real hesitation.
I'd say peoples effectiveness at multitasking depends on thier personal 'cost of a context switch'.
That dart challenge (as stated) is easy if indoors. Shoot straight down. Fasten the gun exactly over the center at the given distance then pull the trigger.
Gets tougher if you have to do it outside (wind) or can't do vertical or both.
Hmm, the question is actually not how much fule is needed to stop the thing, just how much is needed to put it into a good orbit around the earth.
Probably a smaller number, also probably still a freaking huge one.
Any chance of nudging it enough and using gravity as an ally here, if we can get a few space probes up to speed with slingshot tricks could we do the same here? What if any planets are in the right place for this (o.k. probably none considering how big space is)?
While it seems one hell of a long shot, it'd still be a rather impressive acomplishment if we could find a way to do it.
Strange, other than flakyness with the actual phone lines, Shareaza has been the most reliable for me. It also does the mule thing (not that I got the eight plus hours to wait for a download to start that's only going to crap out after a few dozen K) as well as bittorrent.
Admittedly I'm not to fond of how they took out the sort on collum feature, but it was causing issues for a few people.
Actually longer than a decade, at least two. (computer games in the 80's the betamax decision, et al.)
And they don't want to lock up the internet (well they do, but that's just a side item), they want to lock up everything that could remotely be used to copy anything, which could as a side benifit restrict new 'content creation' to those with enough $$ to buy digital certs.
This is a big reason for 'trusted computing' (trusted by them, not you), the broadcast flag, no-copy watermarks, the dmca, etc.
Oh it's even worse than that. Those OEM installs often only EXIST on that machine, in a seperate partition that may or may not be hidden.
All the 're-install cd' does in many cases is copy a new system image from this 'special' partition. (the image may be compressed, or not) I've seen computers sold with a 60gig hd that only had about 20 free BEFORE anything other than what it shipped with is installed. 20gig of windows and 'included packages' of crap, and another 20gig replicating that in another partition.
Of course this means you can't easily add a new bigger hard drive except as a secondary, and a few oem motherboards have shiped with only 1 ide port.
Not to mention what happens if some virus or malware hoses the data on the hd enough to wreck that hidden partition.
In both cases you have to buy a new copy of xp, and hope to be able to go on-line and find the drivers you'll likely need.
If truth undermines a thing it is eigther a secret or a lie. One should be warry of secrets.
Proof is not truth, but is related in some respects.
IOW, saying 'trust me' without proof is a suspicious thing from other than those you've come to trust. Especially when it's followed by 'do as I say or bad things will happen to you'.
That's one thing I never understood about SETI and other assumptions about the radio output of civilizations.
In the beggining it made sense, raw radio simply modulated at ever increasing power, shure we should be bombarded by a fair amount of signal everyday.
But as our sophistication increases we're actually broadcasting less and less easily detected radio outward (at least relative to our total communications). Current transmitters don't usually broadcast in a sphere shape, but more in a stretched donut shap that causes the bulk of of the radio energy to radiate parrallel along the ground, using the energy that would be wasted up and down to go farther.
We're also makeing more and more use of spread spectrum techniques and such that make the signal harder to detect from noise unless you know the exact pattern used. As well as much of our communications now go down fibre optic pipes, or at least shielded lines.
Add in increasing detection capabilities (how far away can your cell phone hit a tower, with how much power?) reducing needed signal strength.
I'd not be suprised if the real window for SETI to find a civilization that wasn't actively trying to be found wasn't under 200years. And while we are eager for a contact (well not all of us, but enough), it doesn't follow that all alien civilazation do. Could be thier psychology is more likely to make it seem to much of a bother for them to worry about.
Not that SETI is worthless, some civilasations may be brodcasting a hello, and some just may be in thier window as we are. I just don't think the lack of many bingos makes us as all alone as some critics would suggest it does.
My favorite episode of TNG along them lines (and one of my favorites period) is the one about Data's daughter. The scene were Data is told to 'hand over' his child by the admiral followed by Picard telling him 'Belay that order' and going off on the admiral by essentially telling him his good carreer isn't worth ordering a man to surrender his child to the state.
While they caution against using more than a tiny bit of what's in there, that doesn't mean one should deliberately put in item that violate the established rules eigther.
You may not use every part of C or C++ in a program, but doing something that violates the rules tends to be not good.
I think to stay good SF one should invent as little 'new' science as possible and keep to real science for everything else. Especailly later on in a story or ongoing series. Set out up front what the 'new' science is and how it works (not the math/physics per-se, but rather laymans rules) as soon as possible (excepting of course stories where the 'new' science is a mystery and discovering how the tech of the 'ancients' or whomever works is part of the plot).
Basically when you invent 'new' science every couple of episodes as eigther an uncreative plot device and/or deus-ex-machina you already have the shark in your rear view mirror.
That was a very amusing way to say 'jump the shark', at least the mental image of a shark complaining about it's airspace being violated that came to mind when I read it was. thx
Well compared to national elections here (USA) they appear to have had better turnout.
Of course that's as much a mark against voters here as it is for the voters there.
Personally I think it's all smoke and mirrors. On one hand thier trying to look like good little corps to the shareholders with thier fud, and on the other thier pushing for things like trusted computing and dmca style laws to create a situation wher they can effectively change over to charge per use after it's to difficult to unsnarl the mess. They can't go straight to charge per use as to many would object and refuse, so they boil the frog instead.
It wasn't clear to me, I thought you were saying they couldn't sue because they new when they bought it a net connection was needed.
My point was they still had basis because they DID have the net connetion.
Anyone who's been burned by steam (sorry, not intentional) and continues to keep buying thier products despite knowing they're not reliable loses most of my sympathy also, doesn't stop valve from being in the wrong here, just makes them suckers/overly optimistic.
Lightbulbs still at least worked and put out light. And I think 20+ years is a bit excessive for an infancy in a computer technology.
Copy protection on software goese back AT least to the early eighties when the C64, Apple II, and pc-xt where state of the art home pc's
Yet copy protection still takes the same time to bypass, almost none.
As far as saying more than half of all people exclusively choose 'pirated' media. I'd need to see some solid research backing such and incredible claim. Especialy when you turn right around and say otherwise.
I'd bet majority of people buy legitimate product DESPITE drm inconviences, not because of them. For quite a few reasons, the extras (t-shirt, liner notes, good artwork,etc.), moral and ethical, and so on.
As far as how can they afford not to, simple they are effectively not using drm now (given few titely stay un-cracked a full month) and still taking in record proffits. Subtract the overhead wasted on ineffective copy-protection and thier proffits would be even more. I seriously doubt the cost they pay for 'protection' is less than the few extra sales it may encourage.
And store security guards don't show up at my house and randomly break, or limit use, of my groceries.
The simple truth is that DRM is a waste of money and time when it comes to preventing illeagle copying, it only inconviencies and insults legitimate users.
What it's really about is trying to lock things up such that you KEEP paying for something after you bought it. It's about being forced to rent all your software and all your entertainment rather than own it.
Unfortunately the only way they can do this is to take away our ability to do so in every way they can. This is why laws like the DMCA and efforts to push trusted computing (One is useless without the other) are being pursued so hard
So perhaps you buy thier excuses and lies, but I don't. Please stop and think about it beyond the simplistic view the *AA and SBA propagate.
There is NO acceptable way to treat me like a criminal for wanting to use what I paid for, to prevent me from watching a movie I paid for on the device of my choice, to forcing me to pay for something over and over again.
And not using dongles is cheaper, and just as effective at preventing 'piracy' (anyone who really doesn't want to pay for it is going to get it a week or two later from some warez site or usenet or some such).
My point is if we could convice enough shareholders that this crap is just cutting into proffits they'd apply presure real quick and then we wouldn't be having to deal with this crap. After the people using cracked copies don't have to deal with the crap, why should legitimate customers.
Not that long ago dongles were more popular and didn't cost that much.
Your effectively dealing with lack of demand and competition in a limited market(as you said). Thier (the dongle maker's) markup is likely very high. Every aspect you mention is available in comodity parts, the only 'expensive' part is the software.
I doubt the hardware cost THEM much, design and software dev time probly acounts for 90% of thier costs, but that's a cost that repeats very infrequently, and can leverage previous incarnations.
In the end it, like all copy protection crap, is a waste of money. You're charging your customers extra for that dongle, that they can't loose, when the app is probably already cracked and on-line unless it's to speciallized to interest anyone. In which case why bother protecting something no-one would 'pirate'. Those that need it can't risk the problems a 'pirate' copy could bring, and those that can risk it don't want it.
The trick in these cases is likely convincing management thier wasting time and money without them deciding your calling them idiots. Maybe take the angle, subtly, that they're being scammed by the drm snake oil salesmen.
I remember the last time I ran into dongleware, when it broke I just built my own replacement, it was a 15k(IIRC been a while) resistor in plastic box that shorted two pins on one of the c64's odd ports.
Just two minor corrections, first I'm pretty shure the launch codes are a bit shorter, they do no good if the war is over before you manage to remember the whole thing and enter it correctly without an error message.
And on a more serious note there is no waiting on the crack, several have been posted already and one looks like it's a general hack for steam, not just hl2.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm actually at my best under pressure, provided I know enough of the parameters. Whithout enough experience however I have issues. With too much time I start thinking about to many what-if's and borrowing trouble and nit picking my own decisions.
I know exactly what you mean about how others think being hard to deal with. In area's where I know what I'm doing and the right thing needs to be done NOW I find I have little patience for 'idiots'. I put that in quotes because they're not really idiots(at least usually not), they just don't think like I do and the conflict drives me nuts. I see with crystal clarity the 'right' way to fix something and start to do so, and usually half way through someone tries to push me in a different direction. It's really hard, not to mention frustrating, to explain things that took years of experience to put together into an almost instinctive gestalt when time is short.
Mycroft
I always did well on tests. For one thing I was always told I was smart and didn't worry about it, and later when I could have worried I was used to doing good and still later I didn't particularly care that much anyway.
Mycroft
A friend of mine graduated with an economic major last spring, he's moving to Dc in a couple weeks to for a government job he's been chasing the last several months. Blanking on which 'dept of' he's going to work for (want to say labor, but can't be shure).
He did have the advantage of an income from a minor disability he got in the army, that got him out of the army. It was enough he didn't have to work more than part time while the army paid for his college. His disability is knee related iirc and won't give him major trouble till he's much older.
It's nice money apparently, good luck.
Mycroft
No kidding the set rules way to do everything can be stupidly applied.
I had a math teacher in highschool (freshman iirc, was a while back, could have been the previous year) that insisted every step in solving a problem be shown, so I wrote every step I took. and then got docked on my score for not showing every step, despite getting the right answer almost every time.
I was doing in one step what he thought should be two or three, but to me it was one step and conceptually splitting some of those things was like stoping 3/4 of the way through a step in walking.
His explanation that If I 'skiped' steps (that to me didn't exist) I wouldn't learn and that made no sense.
Now I know some might be tempted to take his side but this was simple arithmetic within basic algebra. His steps literly added complication where it could teach nothing to anyone ready to take the class, and anyone not ready wouldn't be helped by what for everyone else was a diversion from the actual principles and mechanisms in algebra.
Mycroft
Actually that's a common failure of management who can't achieve the same results correctly.
The correct way is to give someone more work (and reward/feedback!) as you observe. If you're doing it right you spot thier limit BEFORE they reach it and keep them at the right level BELOW that limit.
The most efficient point is well below that limit, and is usually fun to be at if you don't outright hate your job.
And absolutely make shure they know when you are pleased with them, feedback is critical, especially when they're doing a good job. And if you don't actually mean it when you give them good feedback then you are screwing up. You honestly have to want them to do well for thier sakes as well as your own or at best your going to be yet another boss, and not a manager nor a leader.
Mycroft
Doesn't fit my experience. Usually I can't do things well one at a time, not enough to keep me thinking clearly.
I'm usually working mostly on one thing while doing background processing on another. If I get stuck in a situation where I can only work on one thing I find it takes me longer (actual as measured by clock, not perceptual) than it would if I was working on that and something else.
Also many/most tasks have natural 'wait' times where you can do something else rather sit and stare at the food cooking, wait on hold, etc.
Of course In my case and some others it may be related to having ADD. Though I've also known people who can't task switch well, and certainly can't do a good 'context' retrieval when returning to a partially finished task.
My father once commented the most effective/successfull people he's ever met where those who could stop some task in mid stream and completely switch to totaly focus on something new that needed imediate attention and then switch completely back as if un-interupted. Both switches without any real hesitation.
I'd say peoples effectiveness at multitasking depends on thier personal 'cost of a context switch'.
Mycroft
That dart challenge (as stated) is easy if indoors. Shoot straight down. Fasten the gun exactly over the center at the given distance then pull the trigger.
Gets tougher if you have to do it outside (wind) or can't do vertical or both.
Mycroft
I've said 'sf' in a conversation or three about Science fiction. Of course I'm not known for normal choices in the words I use.
Mycroft
Hmm, the question is actually not how much fule is needed to stop the thing, just how much is needed to put it into a good orbit around the earth.
Probably a smaller number, also probably still a freaking huge one.
Any chance of nudging it enough and using gravity as an ally here, if we can get a few space probes up to speed with slingshot tricks could we do the same here? What if any planets are in the right place for this (o.k. probably none considering how big space is)?
While it seems one hell of a long shot, it'd still be a rather impressive acomplishment if we could find a way to do it.
Mycroft
LOL real reassuring sig there:)
Mycroft
Strange, other than flakyness with the actual phone lines, Shareaza has been the most reliable for me. It also does the mule thing (not that I got the eight plus hours to wait for a download to start that's only going to crap out after a few dozen K) as well as bittorrent.
Admittedly I'm not to fond of how they took out the sort on collum feature, but it was causing issues for a few people.
Mycroft
Mycroft
Actually longer than a decade, at least two. (computer games in the 80's the betamax decision, et al.)
And they don't want to lock up the internet (well they do, but that's just a side item), they want to lock up everything that could remotely be used to copy anything, which could as a side benifit restrict new 'content creation' to those with enough $$ to buy digital certs.
This is a big reason for 'trusted computing' (trusted by them, not you), the broadcast flag, no-copy watermarks, the dmca, etc.
Mycroft
Oh it's even worse than that. Those OEM installs often only EXIST on that machine, in a seperate partition that may or may not be hidden.
All the 're-install cd' does in many cases is copy a new system image from this 'special' partition. (the image may be compressed, or not) I've seen computers sold with a 60gig hd that only had about 20 free BEFORE anything other than what it shipped with is installed. 20gig of windows and 'included packages' of crap, and another 20gig replicating that in another partition.
Of course this means you can't easily add a new bigger hard drive except as a secondary, and a few oem motherboards have shiped with only 1 ide port.
Not to mention what happens if some virus or malware hoses the data on the hd enough to wreck that hidden partition.
In both cases you have to buy a new copy of xp, and hope to be able to go on-line and find the drivers you'll likely need.
Mycroft
Not to mention Doctor Spock was never on Star Trek (original series) that I'm aware of. I suspect humor is involved somehow. :)
Mycroft
If truth undermines a thing it is eigther a secret or a lie. One should be warry of secrets.
Proof is not truth, but is related in some respects.
IOW, saying 'trust me' without proof is a suspicious thing from other than those you've come to trust. Especially when it's followed by 'do as I say or bad things will happen to you'.
Mycroft
That's one thing I never understood about SETI and other assumptions about the radio output of civilizations.
In the beggining it made sense, raw radio simply modulated at ever increasing power, shure we should be bombarded by a fair amount of signal everyday.
But as our sophistication increases we're actually broadcasting less and less easily detected radio outward (at least relative to our total communications). Current transmitters don't usually broadcast in a sphere shape, but more in a stretched donut shap that causes the bulk of of the radio energy to radiate parrallel along the ground, using the energy that would be wasted up and down to go farther.
We're also makeing more and more use of spread spectrum techniques and such that make the signal harder to detect from noise unless you know the exact pattern used. As well as much of our communications now go down fibre optic pipes, or at least shielded lines.
Add in increasing detection capabilities (how far away can your cell phone hit a tower, with how much power?) reducing needed signal strength.
I'd not be suprised if the real window for SETI to find a civilization that wasn't actively trying to be found wasn't under 200years. And while we are eager for a contact (well not all of us, but enough), it doesn't follow that all alien civilazation do. Could be thier psychology is more likely to make it seem to much of a bother for them to worry about.
Not that SETI is worthless, some civilasations may be brodcasting a hello, and some just may be in thier window as we are. I just don't think the lack of many bingos makes us as all alone as some critics would suggest it does.
Mycroft
My favorite episode of TNG along them lines (and one of my favorites period) is the one about Data's daughter. The scene were Data is told to 'hand over' his child by the admiral followed by Picard telling him 'Belay that order' and going off on the admiral by essentially telling him his good carreer isn't worth ordering a man to surrender his child to the state.
Mycroft
While they caution against using more than a tiny bit of what's in there, that doesn't mean one should deliberately put in item that violate the established rules eigther.
You may not use every part of C or C++ in a program, but doing something that violates the rules tends to be not good.
I think to stay good SF one should invent as little 'new' science as possible and keep to real science for everything else. Especailly later on in a story or ongoing series. Set out up front what the 'new' science is and how it works (not the math/physics per-se, but rather laymans rules) as soon as possible (excepting of course stories where the 'new' science is a mystery and discovering how the tech of the 'ancients' or whomever works is part of the plot).
Basically when you invent 'new' science every couple of episodes as eigther an uncreative plot device and/or deus-ex-machina you already have the shark in your rear view mirror.
That was a very amusing way to say 'jump the shark', at least the mental image of a shark complaining about it's airspace being violated that came to mind when I read it was. thx
Mycroft
Well compared to national elections here (USA) they appear to have had better turnout.
Of course that's as much a mark against voters here as it is for the voters there.
Mycroft
Personally I think it's all smoke and mirrors. On one hand thier trying to look like good little corps to the shareholders with thier fud, and on the other thier pushing for things like trusted computing and dmca style laws to create a situation wher they can effectively change over to charge per use after it's to difficult to unsnarl the mess. They can't go straight to charge per use as to many would object and refuse, so they boil the frog instead.
Mycroft
It wasn't clear to me, I thought you were saying they couldn't sue because they new when they bought it a net connection was needed.
My point was they still had basis because they DID have the net connetion.
Anyone who's been burned by steam (sorry, not intentional) and continues to keep buying thier products despite knowing they're not reliable loses most of my sympathy also, doesn't stop valve from being in the wrong here, just makes them suckers/overly optimistic.
Mycroft
Lightbulbs still at least worked and put out light. And I think 20+ years is a bit excessive for an infancy in a computer technology.
Copy protection on software goese back AT least to the early eighties when the C64, Apple II, and pc-xt where state of the art home pc's
Yet copy protection still takes the same time to bypass, almost none.
As far as saying more than half of all people exclusively choose 'pirated' media. I'd need to see some solid research backing such and incredible claim. Especialy when you turn right around and say otherwise.
I'd bet majority of people buy legitimate product DESPITE drm inconviences, not because of them. For quite a few reasons, the extras (t-shirt, liner notes, good artwork,etc.), moral and ethical, and so on.
As far as how can they afford not to, simple they are effectively not using drm now (given few titely stay un-cracked a full month) and still taking in record proffits. Subtract the overhead wasted on ineffective copy-protection and thier proffits would be even more. I seriously doubt the cost they pay for 'protection' is less than the few extra sales it may encourage.
And store security guards don't show up at my house and randomly break, or limit use, of my groceries.
The simple truth is that DRM is a waste of money and time when it comes to preventing illeagle copying, it only inconviencies and insults legitimate users.
What it's really about is trying to lock things up such that you KEEP paying for something after you bought it. It's about being forced to rent all your software and all your entertainment rather than own it.
Unfortunately the only way they can do this is to take away our ability to do so in every way they can. This is why laws like the DMCA and efforts to push trusted computing (One is useless without the other) are being pursued so hard
So perhaps you buy thier excuses and lies, but I don't. Please stop and think about it beyond the simplistic view the *AA and SBA propagate.
There is NO acceptable way to treat me like a criminal for wanting to use what I paid for, to prevent me from watching a movie I paid for on the device of my choice, to forcing me to pay for something over and over again.
Mycroft
And not using dongles is cheaper, and just as effective at preventing 'piracy' (anyone who really doesn't want to pay for it is going to get it a week or two later from some warez site or usenet or some such).
My point is if we could convice enough shareholders that this crap is just cutting into proffits they'd apply presure real quick and then we wouldn't be having to deal with this crap. After the people using cracked copies don't have to deal with the crap, why should legitimate customers.
Mycroft
Not that long ago dongles were more popular and didn't cost that much.
Your effectively dealing with lack of demand and competition in a limited market(as you said). Thier (the dongle maker's) markup is likely very high. Every aspect you mention is available in comodity parts, the only 'expensive' part is the software.
I doubt the hardware cost THEM much, design and software dev time probly acounts for 90% of thier costs, but that's a cost that repeats very infrequently, and can leverage previous incarnations.
In the end it, like all copy protection crap, is a waste of money. You're charging your customers extra for that dongle, that they can't loose, when the app is probably already cracked and on-line unless it's to speciallized to interest anyone. In which case why bother protecting something no-one would 'pirate'. Those that need it can't risk the problems a 'pirate' copy could bring, and those that can risk it don't want it.
The trick in these cases is likely convincing management thier wasting time and money without them deciding your calling them idiots. Maybe take the angle, subtly, that they're being scammed by the drm snake oil salesmen.
I remember the last time I ran into dongleware, when it broke I just built my own replacement, it was a 15k(IIRC been a while) resistor in plastic box that shorted two pins on one of the c64's odd ports.
Mycroft
Just two minor corrections, first I'm pretty shure the launch codes are a bit shorter, they do no good if the war is over before you manage to remember the whole thing and enter it correctly without an error message.
And on a more serious note there is no waiting on the crack, several have been posted already and one looks like it's a general hack for steam, not just hl2.
Mycroft