Attempting to make some sort of point about world issues and priorities? on Slashdot?
Little tip for you: couch-potato-activism is not activism, it's ego masturbation.
This is going to make competition between cell-phone companies really fierce!
"We bill you by the pico-second, while our competitors bill you by a full microsecond. Do you really want that?"
I'm loving the game, I regret buying it on DVD though.
I purchased the collectors edition so I could have HL2 and my kid could play HL:Source and CounterStrike. People who bought via Steam can do this, but I bought it on DVD and I'm shit out of luck. Only the person with the DVD in their drive can play. Pissed me off after spending 100 bucks CDN on it. And I can't return it for a refund here.
If I could then I'd just buy through Steam instead.
For the same reason that we are not locked up in cages and allowed to do nothing but work during our working hours.
You obviously don't work for Electronic Arts:)
Apparently you haven't noticed that there are a lot of people that are new to the whole "Intarweb" thing, and think that warez is actually pronounced war-ez.
Not that any of it matters really. If people start getting worked up over the pronunciation of slang, they need new hobbies... like collecting RIAA subpoenas:)
Something I found really annoying was that as someone who purchased the collectors edition, I still have to have the DVD in the drive to play.
It's not notmally a big issue for me, but the people who get it via Steam don't require a CD, and I had to go through the same online authorization and unlocking process they did.
And my primary gaming rig doesn't have a DVD player, so I hooked it up temporarily to do the install.
Of course the disk requirement is most likely a Vivendi issue. After all, CD-keys and Steam authorization isn't enough for them.
Of course, but you'll find that they'll stay close to the food source, and the free roaming ones will find their way in too.
To be virtually certain none escape you can use the funnel method, or take some double sided tape and put it on the inside of the lid. Any that try wandering around on the lid once they get in will end up sticking to the lid and expiring.
Put a piece of banana in the bottom of a mason jar, and poke small holes in the lid. They'll find their way in there.
Or do a search for fruit fly cultures on Google. Owners of Poison Dart Frogs usually breed their own cultures of wingless fruit flies as food. If you make the cultures, it produces CO2 that you would normally get rid of, but in this case leave it in and when the flies go to eat or lay eggs they'll asphyxiate.
But this system doesn't just work in Vivendi's favor.
Take this release date for example. Several large companies received their units last week, while smaller companies continue to receive theirs. If the companies with the largest orders are allowed to start selling immediately, the smaller companies with the lesser orders and lower priorities get the shaft as distribution catches up.
If everyone is limited to selling on the same starting day, these smaller companies have a better chance of being able to move the units they paid for, in all fairness.
How would you feel if you knew that one of the few items on your shelves you knew could pay the rent for your retail space was being sold by the chain down the street a week before you even got your shipment?
It's more a matter of ignorance than stupidity.
People don't know that running an OS without a firewall or some sort of basic protection from the outside world, or browsing random sites with a exploited browser is equivalent to parking your car downtown and leaving the keys in the ignition.
It will take time, but eventually the youth of today will be the better users of tomorrow. Sure, there's always going to be buttheads, but they're the bread and butter of the IT industry:)
Discovery and TLC are turning into the same "reality-TV" wasteland that network television has become. The only redeeming quality is that typically someone actually achieves something productive by the end of a show.
Mythbusters and @Discovery are pretty much the only things worth watching.
That's not exactly insightful.
Sure it's great if all you want to do is buy something, but if you need to return items, they want information.
Electronics Boutique has apparently been tracking returns for a while. Back when Blood Bowl and Full Throttle came out on the PC, I had serious issues with Blood Bowl not working in my cd-rom drive. I exchanged the discs three times then swapped for Full Throttle. The employee mentioned that I'd been doing a lot of returns and wouldn't be able to exchange or return anything for some time because it showed my exchanges.
They still get you at return time.
What makes you think they're crazy?
Using the "I'm-not-responsible-for-my-own-actions" ploy has been successful for years.
1) First, pick a popular media item.
2) Incorporate an aspect of that into a crime.
3) If you get caught, blame it on over exposure to that particular game/show/song.
4) Get reduced sentence due to mental defect.
It doesn't sound crazy at all. Devious and sick, but not crazy.
Jail time has does not necessarily prove to be a deterrent, because most criminals think they're too smart to get caught.
It's not necessarily true, but as long as they think they're going to get away with it, what does a deterrent matter.
Rather than jail, I'd like to see punishment dished out the following way.
First major spamming offence: They burn down the spammers house with all possessions still inside.
Second spamming offense: They burn down the spammers new house, but this time seal them inside first.
It's already lost.
When people criticize George W. Bush in a public place, and the Secret Service or FBI pay them a visit then something is fundamentally wrong.
It's a return to McCarthyism.
Remember... "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists."
There's no freedom there.
I've seen Windows running on ATMs as early as '96, might even have been 95 when I think back to the location and if I was still in the neighborhood at the time.
And the keyboard port on the passbook updater beside the ATM was unprotected. It was in plain site behind the machine, which sat about 2 feet out from the corner of the vestibule. It wouldn't have been a problem for any kid to walk in with a keyboard and try their luck. Not that it would necessarily mean they would get anywhere.
I'd like to be able to block all incoming calls that spoof numbers. As they're invariably people I don't want to talk to anyway.
There's usually two or three new calls a day on my phone's display that point back to bogus numbers. "The number you are calling is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again."
With ID spoofing you can't even call them back and request to have your number removed. Not that it helps much. They just resell the info.
Ultima Online: I missed out on the UO launch because I was a hardware whore who couldn't justify spending (OMG!) a monthly fee. I did get a week long trial at one point, and it was interesting but by then I'd heard of Everquest and was drooling at the mouth.
Everquest: Wow! Check out these locations! The gnomish cities, the dwarven statues, the elven city in the trees! But where are all the features they talked about. Smart mobs that call for help or circle around to flank you? Seems like a few reporters got hoodwinked. Interface made me want to chew off my fingertips and smear a new layout on the screen in blood.
Anarchy Online: Oh god, the pain! (It did get better apparently, just didn't stick around long enough to find out)
Dark Age of Camelot: Wow, this is pretty stable. Models aren't anything to freak out over but the PvP is pretty neat, and these combo buttons are kind of neat. Holy crap! Realm lag is killing me! (I've heard recent reports from friends who still play that Realm warfare is virtually lag free now, with hundreds of players, and that PvP is really where the game shines)
Star Wars Galaxies: Oooh! Star Wars! Wait a minute?!? I have to WALK everywhere? Where's the vehicles? The space ships to pilot?? Why are all the quests to just kill random infestations of critters and pirates? Why don't any of the theme parks work? Man this is frustrating, it's just a huge grind. I think I'm going to quit and sell my character on eBay! (cha-ching! nice profit!). 8 months later: Maybe I'll give the game another chance. It's been a week, some of the stuff is fixed. The badge system at least gives you a lame reason to explore the planets. Too bad there's still no real quest system to encourage that exploration. Oooh Jedis are revamped! 15 MILLION XP OF GRINDING out the same repetitive tasks with nothing to break up the monotony? Time to hit eBay again. Oh crap. Demand for characters has bottomed out, took a big loss on that one.
World of Warcraft Beta: Hmmm, this is pretty polished for a beta. Heck, it's in better condition than most retail releases. The quest system is half decent too. It offers rewards relevant to your character, and grooms you to move on to more challenging areas. The hardware demands are pretty low, and it STILL manages to look great. They could probably convince me to start paying now if they launched it as is.
Remember SubSpace?
It was only 2D but it was great fun. Especially when as a lowly newbie you managed to take out someone with an extremely high bounty value.
It would be cool if someone took the Edgar Rice Burroughs book "Beyond the Farthest Star" and turned the massive air battles into a game. How they'd add depth in order to keep subscribers would be an interesting challenge.
Sounds like a wonderful idea.
Back in '94 some tool decided that he didn't like my friend using the same nick as he frequently used on Efnet, so he then proceeded to harass and flood him.
Since security wasn't as big an issue then as it is now, his IP address wasn't masked, and I went adventuring. His ISP had a telnet daemon with guest access running, something else you wouldn't see today. It didn't take very long to find his username, and real name.
Once we got those, then it was just a matter of using the matchmaking app they also had available for guests, to get his height, weight, hair color, likes and dislikes.
By this time we were really amused, then came the fun part.
Spoofing an email from a fictional dean of the local University's CS department, to the idiots email address threatening to have his ISP revoke his account and have charges of harassment levied against him for his attack on "one of our students". As an added touch we addressed him by name.
Within 5 minutes of sending the email my friend received a/msg of profuse apologies, and the flooding ended.
Not that it was anything more than an inconvenience. We were using OS/2 Warp on our machines and it stood up to the abuse quite well.
So, it wasn't very complicated, but it definitely was a rewarding experience:) Almost "hackerish".
Oh, and GREG CHAPMAN, if you're reading this: Got you, sucker!:)
And that is what legislators and the media seem to largely ignore.
The hijackers weren't here using stolen passports and identification. They came to North America legally, and lived seemingly normal lives.
If the government can come up with an "Ideology Scanner" to prevent terrorism, then huzzah! But until then, they're just implementing more ineffective bureaucratic red tape that not only costs more, but provides a false sense of security as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Attempting to make some sort of point about world issues and priorities? on Slashdot? Little tip for you: couch-potato-activism is not activism, it's ego masturbation.
This is going to make competition between cell-phone companies really fierce! "We bill you by the pico-second, while our competitors bill you by a full microsecond. Do you really want that?"
I'm loving the game, I regret buying it on DVD though. I purchased the collectors edition so I could have HL2 and my kid could play HL:Source and CounterStrike. People who bought via Steam can do this, but I bought it on DVD and I'm shit out of luck. Only the person with the DVD in their drive can play. Pissed me off after spending 100 bucks CDN on it. And I can't return it for a refund here. If I could then I'd just buy through Steam instead.
For the same reason that we are not locked up in cages and allowed to do nothing but work during our working hours. You obviously don't work for Electronic Arts :)
Apparently you haven't noticed that there are a lot of people that are new to the whole "Intarweb" thing, and think that warez is actually pronounced war-ez. Not that any of it matters really. If people start getting worked up over the pronunciation of slang, they need new hobbies... like collecting RIAA subpoenas :)
Something I found really annoying was that as someone who purchased the collectors edition, I still have to have the DVD in the drive to play. It's not notmally a big issue for me, but the people who get it via Steam don't require a CD, and I had to go through the same online authorization and unlocking process they did. And my primary gaming rig doesn't have a DVD player, so I hooked it up temporarily to do the install. Of course the disk requirement is most likely a Vivendi issue. After all, CD-keys and Steam authorization isn't enough for them.
Of course, but you'll find that they'll stay close to the food source, and the free roaming ones will find their way in too. To be virtually certain none escape you can use the funnel method, or take some double sided tape and put it on the inside of the lid. Any that try wandering around on the lid once they get in will end up sticking to the lid and expiring.
Put a piece of banana in the bottom of a mason jar, and poke small holes in the lid. They'll find their way in there. Or do a search for fruit fly cultures on Google. Owners of Poison Dart Frogs usually breed their own cultures of wingless fruit flies as food. If you make the cultures, it produces CO2 that you would normally get rid of, but in this case leave it in and when the flies go to eat or lay eggs they'll asphyxiate.
But this system doesn't just work in Vivendi's favor. Take this release date for example. Several large companies received their units last week, while smaller companies continue to receive theirs. If the companies with the largest orders are allowed to start selling immediately, the smaller companies with the lesser orders and lower priorities get the shaft as distribution catches up. If everyone is limited to selling on the same starting day, these smaller companies have a better chance of being able to move the units they paid for, in all fairness. How would you feel if you knew that one of the few items on your shelves you knew could pay the rent for your retail space was being sold by the chain down the street a week before you even got your shipment?
It's more a matter of ignorance than stupidity. People don't know that running an OS without a firewall or some sort of basic protection from the outside world, or browsing random sites with a exploited browser is equivalent to parking your car downtown and leaving the keys in the ignition. It will take time, but eventually the youth of today will be the better users of tomorrow. Sure, there's always going to be buttheads, but they're the bread and butter of the IT industry :)
Have you watched the Discovery Channel lately?
Discovery and TLC are turning into the same "reality-TV" wasteland that network television has become. The only redeeming quality is that typically someone actually achieves something productive by the end of a show.
Mythbusters and @Discovery are pretty much the only things worth watching.
That's not exactly insightful. Sure it's great if all you want to do is buy something, but if you need to return items, they want information. Electronics Boutique has apparently been tracking returns for a while. Back when Blood Bowl and Full Throttle came out on the PC, I had serious issues with Blood Bowl not working in my cd-rom drive. I exchanged the discs three times then swapped for Full Throttle. The employee mentioned that I'd been doing a lot of returns and wouldn't be able to exchange or return anything for some time because it showed my exchanges. They still get you at return time.
What makes you think they're crazy? Using the "I'm-not-responsible-for-my-own-actions" ploy has been successful for years. 1) First, pick a popular media item. 2) Incorporate an aspect of that into a crime. 3) If you get caught, blame it on over exposure to that particular game/show/song. 4) Get reduced sentence due to mental defect. It doesn't sound crazy at all. Devious and sick, but not crazy.
Jail time has does not necessarily prove to be a deterrent, because most criminals think they're too smart to get caught. It's not necessarily true, but as long as they think they're going to get away with it, what does a deterrent matter. Rather than jail, I'd like to see punishment dished out the following way. First major spamming offence: They burn down the spammers house with all possessions still inside. Second spamming offense: They burn down the spammers new house, but this time seal them inside first.
It's called "marriage" and it costs more than you know.
Well, we did burn down their White House. When are you guys ever going to forgive us for that?
I was going to go as a Wireless router, but I couldn't get the doc to prescribe Viagra for antenna maintenance. :(
Maybe next year.
Funny I can see.... but Informative??? Some people find inspiration in the oddest things.
It's already lost. When people criticize George W. Bush in a public place, and the Secret Service or FBI pay them a visit then something is fundamentally wrong. It's a return to McCarthyism. Remember... "You're either with us, or you're with the terrorists." There's no freedom there.
I've seen Windows running on ATMs as early as '96, might even have been 95 when I think back to the location and if I was still in the neighborhood at the time. And the keyboard port on the passbook updater beside the ATM was unprotected. It was in plain site behind the machine, which sat about 2 feet out from the corner of the vestibule. It wouldn't have been a problem for any kid to walk in with a keyboard and try their luck. Not that it would necessarily mean they would get anywhere.
I'd like to be able to block all incoming calls that spoof numbers. As they're invariably people I don't want to talk to anyway. There's usually two or three new calls a day on my phone's display that point back to bogus numbers. "The number you are calling is not in service. Please hang up and try your call again." With ID spoofing you can't even call them back and request to have your number removed. Not that it helps much. They just resell the info.
Ultima Online: I missed out on the UO launch because I was a hardware whore who couldn't justify spending (OMG!) a monthly fee. I did get a week long trial at one point, and it was interesting but by then I'd heard of Everquest and was drooling at the mouth.
Everquest: Wow! Check out these locations! The gnomish cities, the dwarven statues, the elven city in the trees! But where are all the features they talked about. Smart mobs that call for help or circle around to flank you? Seems like a few reporters got hoodwinked. Interface made me want to chew off my fingertips and smear a new layout on the screen in blood.
Anarchy Online: Oh god, the pain! (It did get better apparently, just didn't stick around long enough to find out)
Dark Age of Camelot: Wow, this is pretty stable. Models aren't anything to freak out over but the PvP is pretty neat, and these combo buttons are kind of neat. Holy crap! Realm lag is killing me! (I've heard recent reports from friends who still play that Realm warfare is virtually lag free now, with hundreds of players, and that PvP is really where the game shines)
Star Wars Galaxies: Oooh! Star Wars! Wait a minute?!? I have to WALK everywhere? Where's the vehicles? The space ships to pilot?? Why are all the quests to just kill random infestations of critters and pirates? Why don't any of the theme parks work? Man this is frustrating, it's just a huge grind. I think I'm going to quit and sell my character on eBay! (cha-ching! nice profit!). 8 months later: Maybe I'll give the game another chance. It's been a week, some of the stuff is fixed. The badge system at least gives you a lame reason to explore the planets. Too bad there's still no real quest system to encourage that exploration. Oooh Jedis are revamped! 15 MILLION XP OF GRINDING out the same repetitive tasks with nothing to break up the monotony? Time to hit eBay again. Oh crap. Demand for characters has bottomed out, took a big loss on that one.
World of Warcraft Beta: Hmmm, this is pretty polished for a beta. Heck, it's in better condition than most retail releases. The quest system is half decent too. It offers rewards relevant to your character, and grooms you to move on to more challenging areas. The hardware demands are pretty low, and it STILL manages to look great. They could probably convince me to start paying now if they launched it as is.
Remember SubSpace? It was only 2D but it was great fun. Especially when as a lowly newbie you managed to take out someone with an extremely high bounty value. It would be cool if someone took the Edgar Rice Burroughs book "Beyond the Farthest Star" and turned the massive air battles into a game. How they'd add depth in order to keep subscribers would be an interesting challenge.
Sounds like a wonderful idea. Back in '94 some tool decided that he didn't like my friend using the same nick as he frequently used on Efnet, so he then proceeded to harass and flood him. Since security wasn't as big an issue then as it is now, his IP address wasn't masked, and I went adventuring. His ISP had a telnet daemon with guest access running, something else you wouldn't see today. It didn't take very long to find his username, and real name. Once we got those, then it was just a matter of using the matchmaking app they also had available for guests, to get his height, weight, hair color, likes and dislikes. By this time we were really amused, then came the fun part. Spoofing an email from a fictional dean of the local University's CS department, to the idiots email address threatening to have his ISP revoke his account and have charges of harassment levied against him for his attack on "one of our students". As an added touch we addressed him by name. Within 5 minutes of sending the email my friend received a /msg of profuse apologies, and the flooding ended.
Not that it was anything more than an inconvenience. We were using OS/2 Warp on our machines and it stood up to the abuse quite well.
So, it wasn't very complicated, but it definitely was a rewarding experience :) Almost "hackerish".
Oh, and GREG CHAPMAN, if you're reading this: Got you, sucker! :)
And that is what legislators and the media seem to largely ignore.
The hijackers weren't here using stolen passports and identification. They came to North America legally, and lived seemingly normal lives.
If the government can come up with an "Ideology Scanner" to prevent terrorism, then huzzah! But until then, they're just implementing more ineffective bureaucratic red tape that not only costs more, but provides a false sense of security as well.
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