Category: Interesting Reads

Rumor: Assassin’s Creed coming to XBox360 and PC

(via Joystiq)
I’ve just finished reading the preview of Assassin’s Creed in a recent Game Informer magazine.  If the game works out to be as good as it sounds, this will be one of the best games in the coming year.  Of course, Trespasser sounded to be the same thing, and look how it turned out.  I hope this is available on the PC or XBox 360, since I never expect to buy a PS3 (or at least, not until the PS4 is released) – I can only afford one next gen box, and I guarantee it won’t be the most expensive one.

So, the Joystiq article in full:

A handful of European gaming sites (1, 2, 3), likely originating with French site Xbox-Gamer.net, have “confirmed” that the mystery of Assassin’s Creed’s exclusivity has been solved: it will be making it’s way to both the Xbox 360 and PC, as well as the previously announced PS3 …

… at least, according to an off the record comment (where’s the reps name?) made to Xbox-Gamer.net at the recent IDEF 2006 expo held in Cannes. There was no information regarding any timed exclusivity for Sony’s console. We all have our suspicions (hence the mystery) regarding Assassin’s Creed’s multi-platform prospects, but an unsourced comment made by a random Ubisoft representative is hardly confirmation (we’ve contacted Ubisoft for official confirmation). Until it shows up here (which it hasn’t) we’re enormously skeptical. And we dance …

I can’t track down good links for this game other than the final one listed above (dang firewall blocks lots of good stuff), but this is a game worth looking up on Google and reading about.
[tags]Assassin’s Creed, Consoles, PS3, XBox360, Gaming[/tags]

Senator Ted Stevens doesn’t get the ‘net

(via boingboing)

Any of you techies wondering who you have representing you? Have you thought about who it is kowtowing to the telecomm companies who are trying to make the Internet a communication structured controlled by big media and big business?

Sadly, it’s people like this who are “working for” citizens in this country.

I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o’clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?

Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the internet commercially…

They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the internet. And again, the internet is not something you just dump something on. It’s not a truck.

It’s a series of tubes.

And if you don’t understand those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and its going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

Yes, you read that right. Senator Stevens (R-Alaska) received an internet which took 5 days to travel via the Internet to him. And the reason for this, he thinks, is because the tubes that make up the Internet were blocked by other companies pushing through things not of interest to him. Because of this, cable internet providers, DSL providers, and other such companies should be allowed to charge the companies which send internets over the Internet so they can assure the senders that their internet will be received promptly.

I have no complaints about people not understanding the technology I deal with every day. But to explain something of which you have no concept and use that as the justification for dry-raping consumers while deep-throating big business is just not right. Learn about something before spewing this crap, and then at least support bad law because you understand the implications.

[tags]Net Neutrality, Big business, Raping consumers[/tags]

17 mistakes Microsoft made in the XBox security system

Sometimes, I don’t even know why I read these things. First, the XBox is kinda old news to most folks. Second, I don’t know many people in real life who care about security. Third, this write-up of XBox security system problems is old anyway (late 2005). But some how, I still find and read these kinds of articles, almost always finding them fascinating, even when I don’t understand what the heck is being said (far too often for my tastes). And if you are like me, you’ll want to at least peek at it, and see how much you understand about security system design and testing.

Motivation for the Security System

The Xbox being a PC, it should be trivial to install Linux on it in order to have a cheap and, for that time, powerful PC. Even today, a small and silent 733 MHz PC with TV connectivity for 149 USD/EUR is still attractive. But this is not the only thing Microsoft wanted to prevent. There are three uses that should not have been possible:

  • Linux: The hardware is subsidized and money is gained with the games, therefore people should not be able to buy an Xbox without the intent to buy any games. Microsoft apparently feels that allowing the Xbox to be used as a (Linux) computer would be too expensive for them.
  • Homebrew/Unlicensed: Microsoft wants the software monopoly on the Xbox platform. Nobody should be able to publish unlicensed software, because Microsoft wants to gain money with the games to amortize the hardware losses, and because they do not want anyone to release non-Internet Explorer browsers and non-Windows Media Player multimedia software.
  • Copies: Obviously it is important to Microsoft that it is not possible to run copied games on the Xbox.

Microsoft decided to design a single security system that was supposed to make Linux, homebrew/unlicensed software and copies impossible. The idea to accomplish this was by simply locking out all software that is either not on the intended (original) medium or not by Microsoft.

On the one hand, this idea makes the security system easier and there are less possible points off attack. But on the other hand, 3 times more attackers have a single security system to hack: Although Open Source and Linux people, homebrew developers, game companies as well as crackers have little common interests, they could unite in this case and jointly hack the Xbox security system.

Then falls all the gory details of how the XBox boot system works, what security systems were put in place to protect the boot, how the systems *could* fail, how work-arounds were found to take advantage of those failures, and so on.  It’s a great bit insight into how hardware hacking can be done, but it’s also fairly technical at times.

[tags]XBox, Security, Microsoft[/tags]

Large parts of SCO lawsuit thrown out

(via Ars Technica)

In part of the ongoing lawsuit in which SCO claims it will prove something it has so far failed to prove in 3 years, Magistrate Brooke C. Wells of the US District Court in Salt Lake City has dismissed 182 of SCO’s 294 claims.

The dismissal is part of a 39-page ruling that comes down hard on SCO for continually refusing to provide specific details about which lines of code in SCO’s products were stolen by Linux programmers.

“SCO’s arguments are akin to SCO telling IBM, ‘Sorry we are not going to tell you what you did wrong because you already know,'” Wells wrote in the ruling. “Given the amount of code that SCO has received in discovery, the court finds it inexcusable that SCO is, in essence, still not placing all the details on the table.”

SCO’s reaction to the news was predictably unrevealing. “Our legal team is reviewing the judge’s ruling and will determine our next steps in the near future,” said SCO spokesperson Blake Stowell.

Yeah, this case just keeps looking worse and worse for SCO.  Of course, I think that’s probably expected by most after watching 3 years of nothing coming that SCO says it will deliver.

[tags]SCO, IBM, SCO vs. IBM, Linux lawsuit[/tags]

Why you should destroy your own hard drives

This Security Awareness article is old news now, but still required reading if you missed it the first go around. The basis of the story is simple – a couple paid for an upgraded hard drive on their system and received assurances from the Best Buy techs that the drive would be destroyed so no one could recover their information from the drive.

“They said rest assured. They drill holes in it so it’s useless,” said Gerbus.

A few months ago, Gerbus got a phone call from a man in Chicago.

“He said, ‘My name is Ed. I just bought your hard drive for $25 at a flea market in Chicago,” said Gerbus. “I thought my world was coming down.”

Hmmmmm. That’s doesn’t sound to me like the drive was destroyed with holes drilled in it. It does sound like Ed was decent and wasn’t going to steal the couples’ identities. But one can never be too careful.

“He said, ‘Do you want me to wipe it clean or send it to you?’ I told him to send it to me. I wanted it in my hands,” said Gerbus.

Gerbus received the hard drive a few weeks later.

As a precaution, the couple alerted the major credit bureaus to protect their information.

“I’m not leaving myself open to indentity theft,” said Gerbus.

Target 5’s Tom Sussi contacted Best Buy to figure out how the Gerbus’ hard drive wound up at a flea market outside Chicago.

In case you are wondering, Best Buy promises to investigate the matter.  I haven’t heard anything since this story first ran, so I don’t know what Best Buy found as the cause.

[tags]Security, Data destruction, Best Buy[/tags]

Sperm have a sense of smell

Here’s a little bit of news that I doubt many people knew. The fine folks at SEED magazine have published a short about the sense of smell that sperm have.

A new study published in the journal Analytical Chemistry shows that sperm have a sense of smell. Further, it’s so sophisticated that even an ovarian scent that’s diluted 100,000 times will cause the little gametes to turn tail and swim in its direction. The study’s authors note that sperm have olfactory receptor proteins—much like those in our noses—which reside over their outer membranes. The researchers used mouse sperm for their study, but they are confident their results apply to man-sperm as well. Apparently, sperm does not hold much of a species bias, as sperm from one mammal will respond to ovarian chemicals from another.

(source: Discovery News)

I just had to post this, as how often can one post about sperm, use the term man-sperm, and speak about SEED magazine all at the same time and not be discussing something dirty? I didn’t want to pass on the opportunity to educate and use funny words at the same time. I’ll avoid the offensive or suggestive jokes I could make at this time.

However, since we’re on the subject, here’s another sex-related article from the same page.

Hold the Screaming Orgasm

Norwegians like their nights long, their herring pickled and their sex sober. According to a survey of 1736 people by Arcus, the only wine distiller in Norway, 52% of Norwegian men and 59% of Norwegian women think sex is better without social lubricant. However, 27% of men and 20% of women responded that it’s preferable to have a few glasses of wine before doing the deed. This study is the first step in Arcus’s grand plan to find out exactly when and how Norway wants its booze.

(source: Aftenposten) Thanks to Seed‘s Deputy Art Director Adam Billyeald for his translation assistance.

[tags]SEED magazine, Science news[/tags]

Diaries of Columbine cowards released

Over at CNN, we find out that the diaries of the cowards responsible for the Columbine attack have been released to the public. We can learn a little about the jack-holes responsible for the attack from these, and maybe a little about their families, as well.

On a calendar entry dated the day of the attack, April 20, the time 11:10 is written across the top — an approximate reference to when Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold pulled out their weapons inside the suburban high school and started firing.

The two killed 12 students and a teacher before taking their own lives in what remains one of the deadliest school attacks in U.S. history.

Elsewhere in the calendar are notations including “get nails” and “get propanes, fill my clips” and “finish fuses.”

Well, I’m already forming an opinion based on that last paragraph. Those of you that know me can guess what it is. Those of you that don’t know me will have to deduce it from what I have to say about the event and the diaries.

Continue reading “Diaries of Columbine cowards released”

US working on joint action on North Korea

Reuter’s has a brief article up today about the US response to North Korea’s recent test firing of long-range missiles. I’m watching for news on this, because I want to see inspiring leadership from our administration on this issue. To me, this is a good start, but I’ll be watching how we continue to deal with North Korea in the near future and how North Korea responds to the US.

“My message was that we want to solve this problem diplomatically, and the best way to solve the problem diplomatically is for all of us to be working in concert and to send one message, and that is — to Kim Jong Il — that, ‘We expect you to adhere to international norms, and we expect you to keep your word,’ Bush said.

“It is in our interests that we send a clear message to the leaders of North Korea,” he added at a White House news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

While China and Russia oppose sanctions on North Korea for the volley of missiles it fired, the United States and Japan have closed ranks in the face of a council split on the issue.

Anyone who knows how anything about the UN knows that China and Russia agreeing to a stance opposed to the US’ stance isn’t unusual. The interesting thing is Japan, which has at times been somewhat distanced from the issue has sided with the US for now.

A defiant North Korea vowed more tests and threatened to use force if the international community tried to stop it.

“The KPA will go on with missile launch exercises as part of its efforts to bolster deterrent for self-defense in the future,” North Korea’s official KCNA news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman as saying.

“The DPRK will have no option but to take stronger physical actions of other forms, should any other country dare take issue with the exercises and put pressure upon it.”

DPRK stands for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Officials say North Korea launched at least six missiles from its east coast and, as the international community fumed, fired off a seventh some 12 hours later.

Well, now we have a bit more concrete information. Yesterday, I’d seen reports of as few as three to as many as 11 missiles had been test fired. Today, North Korea acknowledged the missile firings for the first time, and gave definite numbers.

South Korea’s defense minister told a parliamentary committee that an analysis of equipment and personnel being moved in and out of a missile-launch site in North Korea suggested the possibility of more launches, Yonhap reported.

. . .

Experts say it could take weeks to prepare a Taepodong-2 for firing. Tokyo said it did not expect an imminent launch.

Well, we’ll see. Apparently, we at least have a little bit of time to consider our options more carefully.

Japan’s Koizumi and Bush agreed by phone to work together for a U.N. resolution demanding that nations halt funds and technology that could be used for Pyongyang’s missile program.

. . .

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday sanctions against North Korea would be counter-productive now.

“Trying to talk straight away about the threat of sanctions leads to reciprocal threats from North Korea, as has happened several times before. And then you still have to return to negotiations, only then it will be in a more tense atmosphere,” he told reporters.

I think that translates to “We don’t want to support the US but are scared to say so, so we’ll make up reasons for why we aren’t supporting sanctions. But I could be wrong on that.

[tags]North Korea, Missile test firings[/tags]

Happy Birthday George!

GWBush.jpegWell, well, well. Mr. President turned 60 today. I have to say, he looks damn good for a 60 year old man. I don’t look that good at 36, so I won’t even make the normal “I hope I look that good at that age” comment, because no one that knows me and all my ailments even expects me to make it to 60.  Hats off to someone who has maintained such a good state of fitness.  Hopefully, he’ll have the same good fortune in aging that his father has had.

The above provided link to Mr. Bush’s wikipedia entry has an amazing wealth of detail, by the way.  Whether you like or dislike him, his accomplishments are well worth viewing.  And having a healthy President is always better than having an unhealthy President with someone else actually pulling the strings, so be glad he is in such good health.
[tags]President Bush, Happy Birthday, Mr. Bush[/tags]

How a Fireworks Magician Tames Dynamite

Here’s a pretty cool old article at Modern Mechanix. I just hate that I didn’t see it in time to post for the July 4th holiday. It’s a Modern Mechanix magazine 1934 article about how fireworks speciailists deal with dynamite in a safe manner.

Flaming dynamite and exploding mortars are the chief tools of the fireworks expert. In this vivid, intimate story one of the aces of the fireworks army takes you behind the scenes to reveal, for the first time, the thrills and dangers of his roaring trade.

MILLIONS of Americans thrill yearly to the glittering wheels, flaming rockets and spectacular bombs of the giant fireworks displays; but the men who fire them are the men nobody knows—the world’s most mysterious showmen. . . .“One of the important things to keep in mind about fireworks,” said Briese, “is the difference between display work and the over-the-counter business—that is, the sale of firecrackers, pin wheels, rockets and the – like to the consumer. Accidents are far less frequent in display work because trained men do the firing.

“The noise-makers are the most dangerous pieces. In fact, a stick of dynamite is about the most hazardous unit we employ.

. . .

“The worst accidents in the fireworks business occur at the factories but they are rare now. Only small quantities of material are Handled at a time and most of the work is done in isolated sheds, spotted over a . wide area. These sheds are of flimsy construction. If an explosion does occur, the walls and roof give way, reducing the shock to any persons inside. The big display sets with all their sparks and fire may look hazardous but they are not as dangerous as the simple sticks of dynamite and the bombs. A big display may contain a ton of material but only 300 or 400 pounds of this may be explosive powder. Chemicals make up the balance of the material; and whereas they’ll burn, of course, they won’t explode violently.

. . .

How Displays Are Fired

“Shooters wear no special safety equipment, not even goggles.. The firing is done with a ‘port fire’ a five-foot flare made of two rocket sticks spliced together. It burns about five minutes and gives plenty of brilliant light so the operator can see the ‘match,’ or fuse, where the piece is set off. Sometimes part of the set doesn’t go off because of a broken connection. We keep watch for this and reach up with a port fire and start it going.

Fascinating. A very good, if somewhat lengthy, read on how fireworks shows are (or were in 1934 at least) put together.

[tags]Fireworks, Modern Mechanix, Dynamite[/tags]

Radical new technology: “Carryphone”

(via Modern Mechanix)

I’m not too sure I buy into the idea of a phone which you can carry with you. But the folks at Popular Science thought in 1947 that this was a good idea – at least good enough to get an article about it.

Engineers med_carryphone.jpgand trainmen can keep in constant touch with their own crews or talk with the crews of other trains with the “Carry -phone,” a portable telephone announced by the Pennsylvania Railroad. The device uses railroad tracks or wires as its communication channels, but transmits and receives messages through the air by induction, using a large metal loop.

So, what do you think?  Could people ever decide to carry around phones to help them keep in touch?

[tags]Carry-Phone, Modern Mechanix[/tags]