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User: mzs

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  1. Re:All for the next Zelda? on Nintendo Unveils Wii MotionPlus · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Or for twilight princess, hear me out for the side benefit.

    Right now people are using special save files for Twilight Princess to install homebrew. Nintendo created a system update that deletes certain Twilight princess save files to try and thwart that. Only days later there was a work around.

    The way that Nintendo would like to address this would be to update the Twilight Princess game so that this buffer overflow bug would be fixed. There was a software update in the past that lets the Disc Channel check to see if the game has an update and ask you to run the update before you play the game. So far this has been unused.

    If Nintendo made an update to Twilight Princess where the sword fighting was more realistic, this would be a compelling reason for the upgrade. It is surely not the reason that Nintendo has for this, but could be a side benefit for them. For us we may get an improved Twilight Princess in the process. The homebrew people, they will need to find another exploit.

  2. I found one of these this morning in my inbox on Spammers Announce World War III · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I simply deleted it, just like all the other spam. About once or twice a month I see a clever newish kind of spam subject. Tell me again why this particular spam meme hit the homepage of /.?

  3. Frys DVR on There's a Sucker Converted Every Minute · · Score: 1

    I bought a DVD VCR combo from Frys that only recorded to the VHS tape. I only learned this when I took it home and read the manual. The sign on the shelf clearly called it a 'DVR' even said it was 'compatible with DVD+-R' but not that it recorded to DVD. I had to take it back. They said that the sign was not misleading saying that a DVD player was 'digital' and the VCR was the 'video recorder' part. Then I had my wife try to take it back and she had no problems. I wonder if it was a scam or incompetence.

  4. Re:Zenburn on Best Color Scheme For Coding, Easiest On the Eyes? · · Score: 1

    I second zenburn. It is also a good compromise. In my window managers, terminal emulators, and editors I used to use a color scheme heavy on dark backgrounds, subdued greens and ambers for the text, and grays for the UI elements. Then when using Windows and Mac OS X I learned that there was really no good way to use that scheme as so much assumed a white background. I discovered zenburn and it actually is very useable even within the constraints of Windows and OS X.

    Then I noticed it was actually even easier on my eyes than what I used to use. I think this is because I focus on past the edge of the glass on my CRTs and into the monitor as it were more easily. It is hard to explain and I don't know why it happens but I definitely noticed it where when under the old scheme after a while I would momentarily loose sharp focus of the text.

    The only drawback to any of these custom color scheme is everybody on the web has their own ideas about color scheme with their websites and when you have some reference sources next to code it can be really jarring, especially if the site you are reading is very bright or high contrast.

    PS You need to get rid of glare for zenburn to work well, get that room darker so that you can turn down the brghtness as well, and as with everything keep your screen clean.

  5. Re:Webb, Richardson, or Clark are better choices i on Algorithm Names Powell 'Ideal' Vice President Candidate · · Score: 1

    He did not lie, he was lied to. Before the invasion the administration would send him on goodwill missions to Africa or some such like that every month or two. While he was gone the rest would meet and discuss how to pitch the war. Powell was only shown half of the facts painted to look as convincing as possible. He was the best kind of support for military force that could have been presented to the UN, since he really did believe in what he was presenting and was credible before the administration destroyed that as well.

  6. Re:Traffic goes the wrong direction on Can Any Router Guarantee Bandwidth For VoIP? · · Score: 1

    This is the finest answer. I would like to add that a simple thing to do regarding the 'messing with queuing and TCP ACKs' is to simply drop the inbound packets over a set limit. Yes this is yucky and it causes the retransmits but each time it happens the sender will halve the transmit window thinking it has detected congestion. It is pretty easy to make some firewall rules this this as well, but the easy rules do not take into account the sending host but an aggregate per type. This ends-up leading to slower than expected torrent downloads because what often happens is each peer sending to you gets throttled more than it should and when other peers do not send to you for a while it takes a long time for the TCP transmit window to increase on the sender's end. In practice I see my downloads be 50-75% slower than they otherwise would be. But at least the Skype and iChat are useable.

    The other thing that helps is to lower your MTU. Yes I know it seems counter intuitive but it seems to improve the outgoing QoS queuing.

  7. On the Origin of Species on Entertainment Weekly Bemoans Lack of Great Science Books · · Score: 1

    Charles Darwin

    I read this in high school and it was very readable. It was also a seminal work.

  8. Re:GPL zfs on Sun Spokesman Says "We Screwed Up On Open Source" · · Score: 4, Informative

    No, here is why GPL was not chosen:

    If you wanted a copyleft license, why didn't you just use the GPL or LGPL?


    We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses. While a license like LGPL would allow this for dynamically-linked code, we also needed to be able to release software that statically links source files available under different licenses. In addition, we wanted to allow others to add externsions to OpenSolaris with different license terms. This was only possible under a license like the MPL; however, we could not use the MPL because it is not a "template" license allowing reuse by others. Consequently, we crafted a variant of the MPL, taking the opportunity to make it a template license as a step towards reducing license proliferation for others finding themselves in a similar position.

    The other reason for the creation of the CDDL has to do with software patents:

    What does the CDDL say about patents?


    The CDDL provides an explicit patent license for code released under the license. This means that you can use, modify, and redistribute code released under CDDL without worrying about any patents that the contributors of the code (including Sun) might have on the contributed technology. The license also includes a provision to discourage patent litigation against developers by revoking the rights to the code for anyone initiating a patent claim against a developer regarding code they have contributed.

    The reasons that the GPL is incompatible with the CDDL are very complicated and nuanced but in large part have to do with the patent clauses. It is clear why a company such as Sun needs such clauses. So if it were not for the stupidity of the existence of software patents a CDDL-like license could have been created that would have been compatible with the GPL minus some other niggles. Because of the existence of software patents and the need for such clauses the CDDL is incompatible with the GPL. It is too bad about the GPL being so restrictive about adding clauses that protect the copyright holders.

    Really the spirit should have been that if CDDL source is used in another project that this project needs to be open, but then all sorts of real world complications get in the way. That is basically the spirit of the GPL as well. Sun was against anything BSD-like where another company could take their source and create a closed source product.

  9. Re:Group collision mergers on Why the LHC Won't Destroy the World · · Score: 1

    You do realize that the particles in an accelerator travel near c as well, right?

  10. Re:Fix using Info.plist on Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript · · Score: 3, Informative

    Hmm, this works for me and is persistent across runs. Do this as an admin user:

    $ sudo defaults write /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Info NSAppleScriptEnabled YES
    $ sudo plutil -convert xml1 /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Info.plist
    $ sudo chmod 644 /System/Library/CoreServices/RemoteManagement/ARDAgent.app/Contents/Info.plist

    The NSAppleScriptEnabled seems to force the use of the standard applescript dictionary which lacks the "do shell script" action. This is what you get when you try again:

    $ osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"'
    23:47: execution error: ARDAgent got an error: "whoami" doesn't understand the do shell script message. (-1708)
    $ osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"'
    23:47: execution error: ARDAgent got an error: "whoami" doesn't understand the do shell script message. (-1708)

  11. Re:Physical access? on Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript · · Score: 1

    AppleScript doesn't work on a purely SSH connection.


    Sure it does, but if you are not the same user as the user logged into the console you get this message:
    $ osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "whoami"'
    kCGErrorRangeCheck : Window Server communications from outside of session allowed for root and console user only
    INIT_Processeses(), could not establish the default connection to the WindowServer.Abort trap

    I guess you could be the root user as well but that sort of defeats the purpose.

  12. Re:ARDAgent is Apple Remote Desktop on Mac OS X Root Escalation Through AppleScript · · Score: 1

    Sure they may not be admin users but now they can disable ARD if they wish:

    osascript -e 'tell app "ARDAgent" to do shell script "rm /Library/Preferences/com.apple.RemoteManagement.launchd"'

    Heck they might as well use ed to become a sudoer, I won't detail that.

  13. Re:Yes, I received the same notice. on Netflix To Eliminate Profiles Feature · · Score: 1

    until your realize there's no better value for DVD rentals


    Local library FTW, they even let me manage a queue online of movies I wish to see from libraries all over the state. I do have to actually go to the library though and when no library is willing to send the dvd, they often simply purchase it. That requires a phone call though.

  14. Re:Bah! on All Your Coffee Are Belong To Us · · Score: 1

    My father-in-law always gets me a moka or two when he travels through Italy. The only problem I have with them is that eventually the safety valve breaks. Is there anything I can do so that does not happen?

  15. This is very hard on Computer Scientists Scour Your Holiday Photos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Look at this set of pictures:

    http://htmlhelp.com/~liam/Hawaii/Kauai/WaimeaCanyon/

    Would you know simply by looking at the photos without the sign that this was not say the grand canyon? The whole correct to 200 km aspect is troublesome when the state of the art in computer vision cannot yet even answer that this is a picture of a canyon.

  16. Re:"All features on this page are subject to chang on ZFS Confirmed In Mac OS X Server Snow Leopard · · Score: 0

    Uh no:

    http://zfs.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/faq

    You can download it (also there may or may not be a R/W version on the Apple developer site) and pretty much everything even snapshots work.

    Here are the known issues:

    http://zfs.macosforge.org/trac/wiki/issues

    The real big issue the last time I tried it is that Finder does not work too well with ZFS and you get gajillions of what look to be mounted discs.

  17. Re:Mac's Suck on Apple Quietly Fixes DTrace · · Score: 1

    The the gp was a troll. For what he/she wants to do you can just copy the archive you need and then do cc foo.a bar.o and then ./a.out and it runs fine. I do it all the time to make big static binaries that run on vanilla OS X.

  18. Re:Contract Cancelation on Apple Cracks Down On iPhone Unlockers · · Score: 1

    This happened a few years ago for my wife. I got her the cell phone she wanted for Christmas from AT&T. When it came it did not work. Many hours of on the phone (busy since the holidays) they tell us it is broken. Get another phone, same problem. So we cancel. They waive the ETF, but not all of the other fees which came to almost $40.

  19. Re:2 hours on WWDC '08 Sees Slimmer, Improved, 3G iPhone · · Score: 1

    Where can I see a live blog of the OS 10.6 talk?

  20. Re:It's an "older" technology on Schneier Asks Why We Accept Fax Signatures · · Score: 1

    Cool my 1964 edition of the World Book Encyclopedia is even more cool now for having a photo of a fax machine the size of a freezer. Oh wait mid-70s...

  21. Re:What about Internet "noise" on Time Warner Cable Tries Metering Internet Use · · Score: 1

    Unless you are blocking outgoing ICMP messages (ie 'stealth mode') your OS will send an ICMP unreachable (destination port unreachable) messages. Your ISP could monitor those and deduct what was sent to ports you were not listening to, but they won't do anything like this.

  22. Re:Welcome to our world on Time Warner Cable Tries Metering Internet Use · · Score: 1

    It's June 3rd and you're already over your limit, I bet you could use the larger plan most months then.

  23. Re:QoS, but only on the Telco Side on Why BitTorrent Causes Latency and How To Fix It · · Score: 1

    Nah the simplest thing that you can have your router drop some packets then TCP on the sender will figure it has hit some congestion and drop the window down. Yeah that makes the sender resend things but it always works. There is ECN but both ends need to support that for it to work where the sender gets to know about the congestion but no packets are actually dropped.

  24. Re:monoculture is a problem on Bye Bye Bananas — the Return of Panama Disease · · Score: 1

    I don't know what you are talking about. There is this place a ways out here that I love to go to, a real greasy spoon but run by this Puerto Rican family. They make amazingly greasy sandwiches with flatten fried plantains instead of bread and I literally have had dreams craving for the stuff.

  25. Re:Yeah right this will save money on Prism Glass Windows Making a Comeback · · Score: 1

    No you completely missed the point, it is not about light. Glass is a very poor heat insulator, look at some IR photos of properly insulated modern buildings.