Category: Random Ramblings

Anything that catches my fancy as a topic I want to cover. Truly random crap.

Security company using rootkits?

Hey, it’s my hobby, although I hope to make it my vocation again.  After all the recent fuss over Sony’s use of a rootkit to protect honest consumers from doing things they have a legal right to do, I expect we’ll see more stories like the following come to light.  Apparently, Symantec (aka Norton) uses rootkit technology to “protect” users from themselves when said users run Systemworks.  Now I get the whole idea of wanting to help users avoid problems from accidentally screwing their systems up.  I know that Symantec is just trying to help.  But using technology to hide things from a user on their own system, without specifically spelling out that this will be done is just wrong.  I understand it can be turned on and off, but I get the impression that the functionality of this feature is not spelled out in advance, and it really should be.

As the author of the linked column notes, there’s no known misuse of this rootkit technology to harm systems (that is, there are no known exploits of this “feature” by malware writers).  But that doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t happen.  It doesn’t even mean it hasn’t happened.  As with the Sony fiasco, F-Secure appears to be the consumer protector we would like all security companies to be.  This is a company that is getting my dollars when I next shop for security software.  They just do things right.  And they have a great security blog, too.

New Spiderman? Please, please, please don’t be true.

Well, looks like we may be getting a new Spiderman costume for our favorite web-slinger.  After looking at it, my first thought is “Damn, Peter, eat a freakin’ burger or two!”  And then, I thought, “Damn, that looks like something Tony Stark would come up with.”  And that last thought I had on my own before even reading the article.  It’s ugly.  It doesn’t fit the Spiderman I know.  It’s ugly.  The people commenting in the thread mostly dislike it.  And, it’s ugly.  Here’s hoping this is not something they go through with.

Women on the night shift

No, it’s nothing dirty.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  Thanks to the fantastic site tingilinde, I saw this little article on the effect of working night shift on a woman’s body.  In particular, the increased risk of breast cancer.  Very briefly, the study mentioned in the article suggests that nighttime exposure to light interferes with the body’s production of melatonin, since this primarily occurs at night.  This alteration in melatonin production might increase the risk of breast cancer.

A woman’s blood provides better sustenance for breast cancer just after she’s been exposed to bright light than when she’s been in steady darkness, researchers led by David E. Blask of the Bassett Research Institute in Cooperstown, N.Y., report.

“Light at night is now clearly a risk factor for breast cancer,” Blask says. “Breast tumors are awake during the day, and melatonin puts them to sleep at night.” Add artificial light to the night environment, and “cancer cells become insomniacs,” he says.

“Sleep per se is not important for melatonin,” says Russel J. Reiter, a neuroendocrinologist at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. “But darkness is.”

Read the whole article for more details.  Very interesting reading.

Bad judge!! Bad!

OK, how’s this for bad? A judge sentenced a man to 60 days in prison for repeatedly raping a young girl over a four year period from when she was 7 until she was 10. His reasoning? Well, let’s get a quote from the fine judge:

“The one message I want to get through is that anger doesn’t solve anything. It just corrodes your soul.”

Apparently, Mark Hulett, the offender, is considered low-risk for repeat offense. Let me just say, that if I had a daughter, I’d never want him to babysit for me, no matter how unlikely he is to offend again. I’m sure someone will tell me how wrong I am to hold a person’s past against them, and blah, blah, blah, and so on. I don’t care. You want to make this scumbag unlikely to repeat the offense, you castrate him and lock him up for 10, 20, maybe 30 years. Rape is a horrid thing. Child abuse is almost unspeakably bad. Put the two together and you can just write the offender out of the books, in my opinion.

Odd thing is, the judge use to give harsh punishment for crap like this. He doesn’t believe in it any more, though. Are you wondering why? Well, let’s just give the fine gentleman a chance to speak again:

“I discovered it accomplishes nothing of value;it doesn’t make anything better;it costs us a lot of money; we create a lot of expectation, and we feed on anger.”

Not good enough for me. If you are interested in letting the judge know how you feel about his sentencing, try writing him at:

Edward J Cashman
29 Lamoille St
Essex Junction, VT 05452-3729
(802) 872-0615

Videogame journalism

I planned on pointing out this article titled “The Pointlessness of Current Videogame Journalism” tonight.  The article starts with the author saying “I hate the videogame press.”  It doesn’t really improve much from there.  I was going to write on the problems with this article, but the fine folks at Joystiq beat me to it.  Vladimir Cole’s write-up is much better than what I was going to do.  Read his.  Let me just say I agree with and had planned to write about one point in particular.  Don’t write an article saying how bad the gaming press is, then not give any examples of just what you are talking about.  Especially when your reason for not giving examples is because, apparently, you are looking to get work in the future with exactly those sources you think are so bad.  It’s not really a great article, except for using as a focus of what’s wrong with gaming journalism.

NOTE: The fact that my writing is not really any better than the article in question is not lost on me.  But I’m also not going around saying “Videogame writer’s are bad!  I won’t tell you who, though, because I hope to work with them soon.”

Chumbawumba on copy protection

If you’ve been paying attention lately, you know there’s been a bit of a fuss in the world of CDs over the copy-protection schemes the record labels are forcing us to suffer.  It seems that artists don’t want the copy protection crap on their CDs, but of course the recording industry contracts deny most artists the right to decide that.  Not surprisingly, more artists are sharing their opposition to this.  Check out this brief write-up by a member of Chumbawumba speaking against copy protection.

Follow-up on last night’s post

Last night I was finally able to get the the next-gen.biz article I linked to below.  I think, after reading the whole article, that the writer actually intends to say the new Nintendo controller could be a good thing.  I think that, but I’m not really sure.  I don’t find the article all the well written.  Perhaps I’m just not that bright.  Still, if you haven’t read it, please take 5-10 minutes and see what it says.  Then decide if my guess is worth anything or not.

Next Nintendo console and controller

There has been a lot written about the next Nintendo (currently labeled Revolution).  It certainly has lower tech specs than the XBox360 or the Playstation 3.  There is an article over at next-gen.biz about the console and its odd controller that speaks on the good and bad of the controller.  I’ll be honest here – I can’t get to the article now, so I’m speaking on it based on what little I’ve read of the article from the sites where I can read about it – I’ll update after I’ve read the actual article.  I just want to talk on a particulr quote that caught my eye at Joystiq:

Reading about the Revolution, I have quickly become bored of the constant suggestions people offer, trying to justify Nintendo’s bizarre new idea of a videogame system. If I see one more article about light saber battles, I… well. I’m just disappointed, is all. It’s like everyone is going out of his way to think up the flashiest tech demo in town, when the actual benefit of the system and its controller comes not in the amazing new gimmicks it will facilitate, or in anything that will ever require the player to flail his arm around the room.

I’m no gaming genius, and I can’t tell what will go over well with the gaming masses.  I know what I like, and what I dislike, and that’s really the extent of my knowledge.  I rarely can tell what will be a hit (my best games ever list includes the Descent, Tribes, and Thief series  – all decent sellers, but none spectacular like say Quake or Half-life) and what will be misses (to me, the blah games list includes Half-Life and Counterstrike – neither did I particularly enjoy).  But I do know the Nintendo has a pretty good track record of putting out gaming stuff people want.

Sure, R.O.B. and Virtual Boy 3D tanked, but look at the Nintendo DS.  When it was announced, loads of “experts” pooh-poohed the split screen and touch-sensitive bottom display.  The PSP was announced the winner of the handheld wars before it was even available.  Time marches on, and we can look at how each has done.  So far, the DS seems to be doing better on bringing out games people want to play.  In particular, Nintendo is picking up the much larger, less hard-core market with games like Nintendogs, Electroplankton, and Animal Crossing.  I don’t think the PSP has yet to come out with a “must by this console” game, although I hear Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City is doing well for the company.  Certainly I see more about the multimedia capabilities of the machine than the gaming options.  I’d like a PSP eventually, but I have yet to see a compelling game-based reason to get one right now.

The reason I point all this out is to give some justification for my not-so-bold prediction that Nintendo is going to do just fine with the Revolution and it’s odd controller.  Maybe the killer app won’t be a lightsaber battle game, or anything involving any kind of sword fights.  In fact, it probably won’t.  But just as games have come out for the DS that use the touch screen in interesting ways, games will come out for the Revolution that will use the available technology in interesting ways.  Maybe it will be a weapon-based game, like perhaps a martial-arts simulator with nunchuka and staff training using the controllers capabilities to support this (yes, stupid idea, but I’m trying to think way outside the realm of normal here) or the above-mentioned sword/sabre style games.  Maybe it will be some new music-style game like Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution that takes advantage of the features of the controller (Classical Concert Conductor Revolution?).  Maybe, and most likely, it will be something new that we haven’t really considered or talked about a lot.  But between the Nintendo retro-catalog, the as yet unthought of options with the new controller , and the effort to reach casual gamers, the Revolution will almost certainly do well.

I doubt it will take the number one or number two spot, but Nintendo doesn’t appear to be going for those.  Nintendo is trying to expand the market and get new people playing and buying consoles.  That’s how this new console’s success or failure needs to be measured.  That, and whether or not it’s even profitable.  But Nintendo isn’t going for the biggest console developer spot, or the broadest developer support spot, or the largest install base spot.  Nintendo is trying to get more people outside the standard gamer demographic into playing games and put out a console that will keep the company profitable long term.  And I’m fairly confident that these goals will be reached.