Comment Good luck Rob! (Score 1) 1521
Reading the comments in this thread have reminded me why I've always loved /. - the community makes me think and nod and smile. Thanks for starting the fire. Best wishes!
Wikipedia and the History of Gaming 240
Wired is running a story about Wikipedia's tremendous contribution to documenting the history of video games, and why it shouldn't necessarily be relied upon. Quoting:
"Wikipedia requires reliable, third-party sources for content to stick, and most of the sites that covered MUDs throughout the ’80s were user-generated, heavily specialized or buried deep within forums, user groups and newsletters. Despite their mammoth influence on the current gaming landscape, their insular communities were rarely explored by a nascent games journalist crowd. ... while cataloging gaming history is a vitally important move for this culture or art form, and Wikipedia makes a very valiant contribution, the site can’t be held accountable as the singular destination for gaming archeology. But as it’s often treated as one, due care must be paid to the site to ensure that its recollection doesn’t become clouded or irresponsible, and to ensure its coalition of editors and administrators are not using its stringent rule set to sweep anything as vitally relevant as MUDS under the rug of history."
Comment Re:Does a Database guru have a chance? (Score 1) 156
I'd say yes - in my experience folks don't enter the infosec industry trained as a security engineer. Or at least up to this point, that's rare. Instead, most security teams (including the one I work on) are built with sysadmins, network engineers, code monkeys, web developers and dba's (and a few blackhat script kiddies) that have a particular passion for defending data, networks and endpoints.
Unfortunately, with this decade's increased focus on security I fear we'll soon have a glut of paper CISSP's that only got into infosec because "those guys make a lot of money", not because they were any good at it, or were particularly passionate about the subject. CISSP is quickly becoming this generation's MSCE.
But I digress. For those of us hiring security professionals, we are always struggling to find quality folks with decent experience and passion. We end up recruiting at the local 2600 meeting as much as colleges or Careerbuilder.
Mad Scientist Brings Back Dead With "Deanimation" 501
mattnyc99 writes "Esquire is running a a jaw-dropping profile of MacArthur genius Marc Roth in their annual Best and Brightest roundup, detailing how this gonzo DNA scientist (who also figured out how to diagnose lupus correctly) went from watching his infant daughter die to literally reincarnating animals. Inspired by NOVA and funded by DARPA, Roth has developed a serum for major biotech startup Ikaria that successfully accomplished 'suspended animation' — the closest we've ever come to simulating near-death experiences and then coming back to life. From the article: 'We don't know what life is, anyway. Not really. We just know what life does — it burns oxygen. It's a process of combustion. We're all just slow-burning candles, making our way through our allotment of precious O2 until it becomes our toxin, until we burn out, until we get old and die. But we live on 21 percent oxygen, just as we live at 37 degrees. They're related. Decrease the oxygen to 5 percent, we die. But, look, the concentration of oxygen in the blood that runs through our capillaries is only 2 or 3 percent. We're almost dead already! So what if we turn down the candle's need for oxygen? What if we dim the candle so much that we don't even have the energy to die?' " The writer Tom Junod engages in what Hunter Thompson once called "a failed but essentially noble experiment in pure gonzo journalism." If you can suspend your inner critic for a time, it's a fun ride.
In AU, Dodgy Dell Deal Faces Consumer Backlash 173
Ben Seberry writes "It appears Dell has been caught red-faced by yet another pricing mistake on their Australian website. Many customers thought they had spotted a fantastic deal when they came across a 55%-off offer. Dell later denied that this was a valid special and telephoned customers to offer them a choice of the standard price, or a cancelled order. Dell's senior manager of corporate communication came out and apologized for the mistake, promising processes would be reviewed to prevent it from happening again. In the days after the original 'incorrectly priced' offer was fixed, Dell made a different error leading to an even cheaper price being advertised. This time, on many user forums and blogs, users are debating Australian contract law as it applies to this matter — it is not as clear-cut as many originally believed."
Tool To Allow ISPs To Scan Every File You Transmit 370
timdogg writes "Brilliant Digital Entertainment, an Australian software company, has grabbed the attention of the NY attorney general's office with a tool they have designed that can scan every file that passes between an ISP and its customers. The tool can 'check every file passing through an Internet provider's network — every image, every movie, every document attached to an e-mail or found in a Web search — to see if it matches a list of illegal images.' As with the removal of the alt.binary newgroups, this is being promoted under the guise of preventing child porn. The privacy implications of this tool are staggering."
What Is the Best Way To Disinfect Your Laptop? 545
akutz writes "I've had the flu since Tuesday afternoon. My wife picked me up from work with a temperature of 103.6 and it finally broke at 98.7 around 3am this morning. Yay. The problem is that I used my laptop during my periods of feverish deliriousness, contaminating my shiny 15" MacBook Pro with the icky influenza virus. I am asking my fellow Slashdotters if they have ever sought out a good way of disinfecting their lucky laptops after an illness. Do you use soap? A light acid bath? Just get the family dog to lick it until it looks clean?"
Submission + - TSA to Contractors: Thou Shalt Encrypt Laptops (eweek.com)
eweekhickins writes: "After two laptops were lost (stolen?) containing the personal data of 3,900+ truckers who handle HAZMATs, the Transportation Security Administration has ordered its contractors to encrypt any and all data. Ann Davis, the TSA's public affairs manager, says that even though there's only "a small chance of [the data being misused], we did notify all affected individuals." Well that's a relief."
Ultimate iPhone Review — Will It Blend? 347
I've been enjoying the Will it Blend videos forever. There's something about a labcoat clad crazy man putting things like marbles and soda cans into a blender and after reducing them to powder, warning you not to breathe in the particles. Well today they ask the ultimate question of the latest over-hyped internet sensation
Will the iPhone Blend? Fans of these videos can probably guess the answer... and this story made my morning. I've been waiting for an excuse to link these forever. If you haven't seen these, you're in for a real treat.
"Very Severe Hole" In Vista UAC Design 813
Cuts and bruises writes "Hacker Joanna Rutkowska has flagged a "very severe hole" in the design of Windows Vista's User Account Controls (UAC) feature. The issue is that Vista automatically assumes that all setup programs (application installers) should be run with administrator privileges — and gives the user no option to let them run without elevated privileges. This means that a freeware Tetris installer would be allowed to load kernel drivers. Microsoft's Mark Russinovich acknowledges the risk factor but says it was a 'design choice' to balance security with ease of use."
Comment Re:Not til they fix it... (Score 1) 501
Good gravy, you've taken this very personally. Please reread my comment. If I wasn't clear - it doesn't seem to me that Apple cares very much that their Windows software works all that well. Itunes (now in v7), my example, is non-beta, but is still prone to excessive memory usage, locking up, etc. and has been that way for nearly all Windows releases. It doesn't speak well of them that they cannot manage to get bugs ironed out of their non-beta software, and my hope was that they would put a little more effort into ironing out the bugs in Bootcamp. It's taken them nearly a year to get it to (IMHO) a barely functional state. They're slow to make it work how it should.Okay, then I won't charge you for the Bootcamp Beta. Though if you want to post your credit card number, expiration date, name, and security code, I'll gladly take them. Also, if you only run software that works 100% do you mostly run software written in HAL/S?
Funny - Microsoft doesn't seem to have much problem with that. Office for the Mac works beautifully. Strange, isn't it? But it's likely Apple will share your arrogant attitude, and ignore their customer's requests, and that's my fear. Why bother making a quality product? We'll shortchange them, give them poorly-written code, force them to switch back to OSX out of frustration.Apple doesn't have a lot of experience coding for their competitors' platforms. Strange, isn't it.
What's wrong with that? Apple wants someone to use their product more? It's a childish attitude. Make a quality product, stop being lazy and sloppy, or don't make it at all. Grow up, Apple.
My personal experience - every Wintel PC I've bought or built in the last ten years has had working device drivers out of the box, for everything that was onboard. Maybe you haven't used a Windows box since installing QEMM was necessary. Things have changed.Okay, and every company that sells PCs with Windows preloaded ships drivers that work well? If you're this up in arms about Apple shipping beta Windows XP drivers that don't work as well as their OS X counterparts, what do you think about the actual final version drivers that are shipped preloaded on Windows based computers?
(more than I can say about my Macbook, BTW. The OSX wireless ethernet drivers were broken out of the box - and it took dozens of calls to Apple to get them to realize it and fix them. They worked fine on the same PC in Windows. So, glad they made them work in Windows, but again, doesn't say much for their craftsmanship, for lack of a better word)
Took a few tries to get the stains out, yeahAnd I bet it splashed juice everywhere.
Not sure if you're a dyed-in-the-wool Apple fanboy - your attitude would seem to indicate that - but yes, it's sad that an observation like that would be necessary. Simply a statement about Apple's poor effort in making Bootcamp appear to us, the consumer, as a product worth buying (in the future, if necessary). I hope they work a bit harder at it. Sorry to have gotten your panties in a bunch.So, in order to sell a piece of software, it should have less bugs than the free beta version. That should be modded: (+liek infinity, Insightful)
The 10 Worst Games Made For The PSP and DS 82
VonSnouty writes "With the DS and PSP now out of their 'early years', handheld specialist Pocket Gamer has taken the innovative approach of warning readers off of the 10 worst games for the PSP released so far, as well as the
and 10 worst games for the DS. The latter piece notes that: 'The DS has suffered from as many bad games as its Sony rival. Indeed, according to this unbiased evaluation of the PSP and DS game reviews on MetaCritic, DS has played host to even more dreadful, money-sucking stinkers. The reason? Probably the same things we love the DS for — its unique features, such as the dual-screens and the stylus. A lazy PlayStation 2 port might at least result in a mediocre game on PSP, but DS games done on the cheap are likely to be pure evil.'"
Vista's EULA Product Activation Worries 439
applejax writes "SecurityFocus is running an article regarding some concerns about Vista's activation terms. Do you have the right to use properly purchased but not validated software? What happens if Microsoft deactivates your OS that was legally purchased? The article goes into some detail about Vista's validation and concerns." From the article: "The terms of the Vista EULA, like the current EULA related to the 'Windows Genuine Advantage,' allows Microsoft to unilaterally decide that you have breached the terms of the agreement, and they can essentially disable the software, and possibly deny you access to critical files on your computer without benefit of proof, hearing, testimony or judicial intervention. In fact, if Microsoft is wrong, and your software is, in fact, properly licensed, you probably will be forced to buy a license to another copy of the operating system from Microsoft just to be able to get access to your files, and then you can sue Microsoft for the original license fee."
MacBook Users Fix Trackpad Problem with Origami Paper 291
yonnage writes "Some Apple MacBook owners are plagued with what seems to be a defective trackpad button. The button, when pushed, seems "squishy" and sometimes even unresponsive. While these MacBook owners are getting turned away at the Apple Genius Bars, they have come up with a custom and unique solution to the problem. A piece of paper, placed strategically under the battery pack where the trackpad is located, seems to fix this problem for most users."
PS3 Cell Processor 'Broken'? 417
D-Fly writes "Charlie Demerijian at the Inquirer got a look at some insider specs on the PS3, and says, Sony screwed up big time with the Cell processor; the memory read speed on the current Devkits is something like 3 orders of magnitude slower than the write speed; and is unlikely to improve much before the ship date. The slide from Sony pictured in the article is priceless: 'Local Memory Read Speed ~16Mbps, No this isn't a Typo.' Demerjian says when the PS3 comes out a full year after the XBox360, it's still going to be inferior: 'Someone screwed up so badly it looks like it will relegate the console to second place behind the 360.'" This is the Inquirer, so take with a grain of salt. Just the same, doesn't sound too good for Sony or IBM.
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