How about we each pledge money for a possible share in the profits? If it doesn't reach $50m or $75m or whatever it takes to do the film justice, no-one pays and it doesn't get made. If it gets made and doesn't make a profit, we don't get the money but we do get a kick-ass Bioshock movie and the knowledge we contributed. Crowd-sourced movie funding on a massive scale.
If 500,000 people pledged $200 each or 1,000,000 people pledged $100, it would have a budget of $100m, which is 6 times the budget of Brazil, twice the budget of The One which had Jet Li in it, fighting copies of himself, more than twice the budget of Sin City and only half of what James Cameron needed for Titanic/Avatar.
Go back and hide behind your mommy's skirt, quiche-eater.
"Profanity is the crutch of the ignorant, but every once in a while you've got to talk to one of those ignorant motherfuckers..."
Violence is human nature. Those of us that exist today are the offspring of violent civilizations and/or tribes. Simply put, violent people were the ones that out competed the peaceful ones. Sure, there still are peaceful tribes of people living in isolation in the middle of the jungle, however they continue to not build airplanes, and 42" TV's, and freeways. (...) Why else do people get more upset about sexual scenes in movies than violent ones?
The reason people get more upset about sexual scenes is that, as you say, those of us that exist today are the offspring of violent civilizations! Sex in no way, shape or form has contributed to our existence here.;)
Violent civilisations may have dominated the world, but by Odin's eye I have no idea what a "violent civilisation" is. There were Roman poets, Grecian potters, French sculptors, Italian composers, German philosophers and English painters when they were each battling for supremacy of the world. There are Chinese writers and American peace-activists.
Just because a "civilisation" may be categorised as "violent" doesn't mean all parties living under that civilisation's banner enjoy violence, or want to be exposed to it. Though it may be hypocritical to denounce all violence while enjoying the peace afforded to you by violent actors, it's still a valid position.
For the uninitiated, you could blow off arms, legs, crotches, and heads (before every game released had the option).
A controversial video game, Soldier of Fortune was best known for its graphic depictions of firearms dismembering the human body. This graphic violence is the game's main stylistic attraction, much like the destructible environments of Red Faction or bullet time of Max Payne. The GHOUL engine enables depiction of extreme graphic violence, in which character models are based on body parts that can each independently sustain damage (gore zones). There are 26 zones in total. A shot to the head with a powerful gun will often make the target's head explode, leaving nothing but the bloody stump of the neck remaining; a close-range shot to the stomach with a shotgun will leave an enemy's bowels in a bloody mess, and a shot to the nether regions will cause the victims to clutch their groin in agony for a few seconds before keeling over dead. It is possible to shoot off an enemy's limbs (head, arms, legs) leaving nothing left but a bloody torso. In the last mission there is also a fictional microwave weapon, causing the enemies to fry or explode, depending on the firing mode.
Angry Birds is a simple concept with some great levels and compelling replay value. Would I pay $40 for it? No. However, conversely, I probably wouldn't pay even $2 for some of the "mini-game compilation" titles that have been released for the Wii (having been burned by one such abortion, priced at GB£15), nor would I pay $2 for any of the hastily hacked together "Dogz" clones for the DS. I love those platforms, but some of the crapware that's been released for them should give this man pause for thought before throwing around insults about "cheap" games.
There's a market for AAA US$40-50 titles and a market for US$1-10 casual/indie titles. These are two separate things, and complement each other. What he's probably worried about is that these $1-10 casual/indie titles will compete with similarly priced re-releases of 1st/2nd generation console titles on WiiWare/DS like Super Marios Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin etc.. Now, do I really want to play Sonic on my Wii or do I want to try out VVVVVV or Chime or Clickr on PC?
Now, if you price your SDK and impose restrictions in such a way as to exclude or discourage casual, indie or hobbyist developers then don't be surprised when they turn to other platforms with lower barriers to entry...
He mentions this under "Missing Features" but I find the most annoying thing to come from ports of console titles to PC is the inability to save more often than a console user. I don't want "checkpoints", I want to be able to pause, save, quit whenever I like. Or to quicksave after a long drawn out exposition-in-cutscene by an antagonist, prior to another Final Battle. Most of all, I don't want to have to juggle "save slots", because the original console it was aimed at has limited storage. I have terabytes on hand so please just let me quicksave every 2 seconds if that's what I want.
There are some games that do the "checkpoint thing" well, in that it doesn't get in the way too much and rarely make you re-trace your steps too far but it is still annoying.
Almost every comment here is concentrating on "Autorun" i.e. automatic execution of scripts/executables on media and ignoring the main focus of the talk, which is about exploiting bugs in the way the file-manager handles previews of image, PDF, DVI files etc. situated on the media. More generally he talks about the possibilities of exploiting vulnerabilities in every layer involved when automatically handling inserted media, from device discovery, device drivers, file-system drivers, up to and including the file-manager.
Unless we're all conflating "autorun" with "automount & show the media in a file-manager" now?
And what of the Linux servers that are connected to over SSH using username/password authentication from those filthy little desktops used by mere mortals tasked with administering them?
Seriously, watch the video. Autorun isn't the only problem.
Query the type of the media, but do so without running any code of any type on the media.
Until nefarious person inserts a USB device that, for example, exploits a vulnerability in the code that queries the media. e.g. "Hey Mr. USB drive, tell me your VendorId plz!" "exploitstring" "Oh nooooo!".
As for the rest, it won't ever work. If anything prevents a user from quickly accessing the movie/game/pictures they think are on the DVD/CD/USB device they will either take the quickest route (enabling auto-run/auto-display of any untrusted media) or a completely random route, any of which could cause code to be executed, except the "Do Nothing" option. Not to mention the fact that autorun isn't the only problem. (Seriously, watch the video).
The problem is that an exploit in any of the myriad layers involved in dealing with inserted media makes the system vulnerable. Before your prompt is even displayed the media would have been touched by device discovery code, file system drivers etc. and now...your new authentication code. And then, if the user selects "open as a folder", a seemingly benign action, a bug in the way the file manager handles image/PDF previews (seriously, watch the video) could result in code execution!
While a nice idea in theory, it does little to prevent a truly determined attacker, especially if they have cooperation from all but an expert user.
How obtuse. It's not the computer "automatically reacting" that is the problem. It's the nature of the reaction. A good/sensible reaction might be to mount the media (with the noexec option even) and open the folder in the default file manager. A bad/idiotic reaction is to blindly trust whoever created the media and automatically run anything on it that says it should be run, without first prompting the user. The presentation talks about a lot more than simple autorun, but since that's what you're talking about...
I prefer this one: Penn Point.
Specifically about Asshole Andrew Wakefield's ("who used to be a doctor but is now just a guy") fraudulent falsification of results in order to line his own pockets with money from a firm of lawyers who wanted to sue pharmaceutical companies.
Even if vaccinations DID cause autism, which they don't and there's no proof and this Wakefield's study has been *completely* discredited (it's complete bullshit) but even if it DID cause autism, which it DOESN'T! and let's make this clear, it DOES NOT cause autism, it DOESN'T! It does NOT cause autism. But even if it did, which it doesn't, even if it did, which it doesn't, even if it did, which it doesn't. It doesn't. It DOES NOT. It would STILL be worth it to give vaccinations
Easy, you just do a really great report and then do the following:
s/very/fucking/g
s/bad/shit/g
s/good/awesome/g
This should ensure that the report submitted appears amateurish enough not to incur legal action. The side-effect would be that the report would be simple enough for Kevin Lacy to understand it.
Try searching Google for "Martin Guitars" or "Jet City Amps". The official sites aren't even on the first page of results on Google. On Bing? They're both the first result.
Just did. Top results, both. So it looks like each of our anecdotal evidence cancels the other out. Your move.
Fool! This is the Information age and you would have us hamstrung by tying our units of measurement to proprietary electronic devices?!! 1kg should forthwith be defined as the mass of the paper tape required to store 1 kilobyte of data.
This. Sort of. I find just adding "wiki" tends to give the same results. You occasionally get a wiki other than wikipedia, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. E.g. "wiki Bad Wolf" gives results at wikipedia, but also at tardis.wikia.com.
(...) my search results improved significantly when I stopped using "Google idioms," phrases that I know from past trial/error are very likely to get me a certain type of result from Google.
Can you elaborate? I really don't know what sort of idioms you mean. The only ones I use are the likes of "site:stackoverflow.com".
We do use purple.com. We understand that those who are not technically inclined nor in the know may not see that. That's ok. We don't think any less of those who don't know our personal business.
You obviously must not be "technically inclined" or "in the know".:)
Slashdot Mirror
How about we each pledge money for a possible share in the profits? If it doesn't reach $50m or $75m or whatever it takes to do the film justice, no-one pays and it doesn't get made. If it gets made and doesn't make a profit, we don't get the money but we do get a kick-ass Bioshock movie and the knowledge we contributed. Crowd-sourced movie funding on a massive scale.
If 500,000 people pledged $200 each or 1,000,000 people pledged $100, it would have a budget of $100m, which is 6 times the budget of Brazil, twice the budget of The One which had Jet Li in it, fighting copies of himself, more than twice the budget of Sin City and only half of what James Cameron needed for Titanic/Avatar.
I would be in the front of the queue.
Go back and hide behind your mommy's skirt, quiche-eater.
"Profanity is the crutch of the ignorant, but every once in a while you've got to talk to one of those ignorant motherfuckers..."
Isuzu Hombre Wings
The reason people get more upset about sexual scenes is that, as you say, those of us that exist today are the offspring of violent civilizations! Sex in no way, shape or form has contributed to our existence here. ;)
Violent civilisations may have dominated the world, but by Odin's eye I have no idea what a "violent civilisation" is. There were Roman poets, Grecian potters, French sculptors, Italian composers, German philosophers and English painters when they were each battling for supremacy of the world. There are Chinese writers and American peace-activists.
Just because a "civilisation" may be categorised as "violent" doesn't mean all parties living under that civilisation's banner enjoy violence, or want to be exposed to it. Though it may be hypocritical to denounce all violence while enjoying the peace afforded to you by violent actors, it's still a valid position.
Ref: Wikipedia
But the whole point of Carmageddon was to mow as many people as possible down. You can play GTA3 without killing any "civilians".
Looking forward to your blog...
Mirrored here.
This is just so off the wall I don't even.
Angry Birds is a simple concept with some great levels and compelling replay value. Would I pay $40 for it? No. However, conversely, I probably wouldn't pay even $2 for some of the "mini-game compilation" titles that have been released for the Wii (having been burned by one such abortion, priced at GB£15), nor would I pay $2 for any of the hastily hacked together "Dogz" clones for the DS. I love those platforms, but some of the crapware that's been released for them should give this man pause for thought before throwing around insults about "cheap" games.
There's a market for AAA US$40-50 titles and a market for US$1-10 casual/indie titles. These are two separate things, and complement each other. What he's probably worried about is that these $1-10 casual/indie titles will compete with similarly priced re-releases of 1st/2nd generation console titles on WiiWare/DS like Super Marios Bros., Sonic the Hedgehog, Ecco the Dolphin etc.. Now, do I really want to play Sonic on my Wii or do I want to try out VVVVVV or Chime or Clickr on PC?
Now, if you price your SDK and impose restrictions in such a way as to exclude or discourage casual, indie or hobbyist developers then don't be surprised when they turn to other platforms with lower barriers to entry...
He mentions this under "Missing Features" but I find the most annoying thing to come from ports of console titles to PC is the inability to save more often than a console user. I don't want "checkpoints", I want to be able to pause, save, quit whenever I like. Or to quicksave after a long drawn out exposition-in-cutscene by an antagonist, prior to another Final Battle. Most of all, I don't want to have to juggle "save slots", because the original console it was aimed at has limited storage. I have terabytes on hand so please just let me quicksave every 2 seconds if that's what I want.
There are some games that do the "checkpoint thing" well, in that it doesn't get in the way too much and rarely make you re-trace your steps too far but it is still annoying.
Almost every comment here is concentrating on "Autorun" i.e. automatic execution of scripts/executables on media and ignoring the main focus of the talk, which is about exploiting bugs in the way the file-manager handles previews of image, PDF, DVI files etc. situated on the media. More generally he talks about the possibilities of exploiting vulnerabilities in every layer involved when automatically handling inserted media, from device discovery, device drivers, file-system drivers, up to and including the file-manager.
Unless we're all conflating "autorun" with "automount & show the media in a file-manager" now?
And what of the Linux servers that are connected to over SSH using username/password authentication from those filthy little desktops used by mere mortals tasked with administering them?
Until nefarious person inserts a USB device that, for example, exploits a vulnerability in the code that queries the media. e.g. "Hey Mr. USB drive, tell me your VendorId plz!" "exploitstring" "Oh nooooo!".
As for the rest, it won't ever work. If anything prevents a user from quickly accessing the movie/game/pictures they think are on the DVD/CD/USB device they will either take the quickest route (enabling auto-run/auto-display of any untrusted media) or a completely random route, any of which could cause code to be executed, except the "Do Nothing" option. Not to mention the fact that autorun isn't the only problem. (Seriously, watch the video).
The problem is that an exploit in any of the myriad layers involved in dealing with inserted media makes the system vulnerable. Before your prompt is even displayed the media would have been touched by device discovery code, file system drivers etc. and now...your new authentication code. And then, if the user selects "open as a folder", a seemingly benign action, a bug in the way the file manager handles image/PDF previews (seriously, watch the video) could result in code execution!
While a nice idea in theory, it does little to prevent a truly determined attacker, especially if they have cooperation from all but an expert user.
How obtuse. It's not the computer "automatically reacting" that is the problem. It's the nature of the reaction. A good/sensible reaction might be to mount the media (with the noexec option even) and open the folder in the default file manager. A bad/idiotic reaction is to blindly trust whoever created the media and automatically run anything on it that says it should be run, without first prompting the user. The presentation talks about a lot more than simple autorun, but since that's what you're talking about...
I'd watch Jenny McCarthy as Topless Typhoid Mary.
Specifically about Asshole Andrew Wakefield's ("who used to be a doctor but is now just a guy") fraudulent falsification of results in order to line his own pockets with money from a firm of lawyers who wanted to sue pharmaceutical companies.
So, you worked for a hedge fund then?
This should ensure that the report submitted appears amateurish enough not to incur legal action. The side-effect would be that the report would be simple enough for Kevin Lacy to understand it.
Just did. Top results, both. So it looks like each of our anecdotal evidence cancels the other out. Your move.
Fool! This is the Information age and you would have us hamstrung by tying our units of measurement to proprietary electronic devices?!! 1kg should forthwith be defined as the mass of the paper tape required to store 1 kilobyte of data.
This. Sort of. I find just adding "wiki" tends to give the same results. You occasionally get a wiki other than wikipedia, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. E.g. "wiki Bad Wolf" gives results at wikipedia, but also at tardis.wikia.com.
Can you elaborate? I really don't know what sort of idioms you mean. The only ones I use are the likes of "site:stackoverflow.com".
You obviously must not be "technically inclined" or "in the know". :)
Wow. Oregon is messed up. Suddenly Cholera doesn't sound like a bad option...