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Piracy

Submission + - Rockstar Ships Max Payne 2 Cracked By Pirates (steampowered.com)

Submitted by
CmdrTaco
CmdrTaco writes: "Jamie noticed a fairly amazing little story about Rockstar shipping a version of Max Payne 2 via steam that was actually http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1263556>cracked by pirates to remove the DRM. The going theory was that it was easier for them to simply use the pirate group's crack then to actually remove their DRM themselves."

Comment You know Vegetarians will have their Day. (Score 1) 87

by davonshire (#32085374) Attached to: Salad Spinner Made Into Life-Saving Centrifuge

This is really a great idea, bravo to the students. Though they use
to make hand crank centrifuges I'm pretty certain. This wouldn't
require being clamped to the lab bench or screwed down.

On the other hoof, were it not for salads and Vegetarians we
wouldn't have such a cool something to hack.

(subnote: could be other reasons a salad spinner was created.)

Davonshire.
Sun Microsystems

Submission + - OpenSolaris 2009.06 Review (desktoplinuxreviews.com)

Submitted by JimLynch
JimLynch writes: Occasionally I get an interesting, off-the-beaten-path suggestion on the Request A Review page. This time around somebody suggested doing a review of OpenSolaris. Why do a review of OpenSolaris? Well why the heck not? It's always fun to check out a different kind of desktop operating system. Sometimes you can find an unexpected jewel when you least expect it. Is OpenSolaris a jewel? I'll try to answer that in this review.
Microsoft

Submission + - Microsoft repeals worthless update

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Quoting a Microsoft security bulletin email I received today, " MS10-025 — Critical
  — http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms10-025.mspx
Reason for Revision: V2.0 (April 21, 2010): Revised bulletin to inform customers that the original security update did not protect systems from the vulnerability described in this bulletin. Microsoft recommends that customers apply one of the workarounds described in this bulletin to help mitigate the impact to affected systems until a revised security update is made available."

  Well played, MS. Well played.
Wireless Networking

Submission + - Internet Cafe Could Cost Way More Than Cup of Joe (computerworld.com)

Submitted by CWmike
CWmike writes: Security experts say that employees are increasingly exposing personal and company information unknowingly as they log in at Wi-Fi hotspots. Although these breaches haven't yet made big headlines, given corporate America's increasing reliance on smartphones, laptops and other portable devices, it's only a matter of time, experts say. Ryan Crumb, director of information security for PWC's Advisory Services, has seen all sorts of information gleaned from hot spots — including Social Security numbers, corporate financial data and information about M&A deals — that was never meant for him to see. Sometimes Crumb deliberately looks to see what unprotected data is traveling over the network in public spaces. 'It's an inherent problem with being on a public space,' he says. Marc Noble, director of government affairs at (ISC)2, a nonprofit organization that educates and certifies information security professionals, says, 'Hotspots are great for the coffee shops, but people conducting business have to understand it's their responsibility to protect themselves. They might as well be putting it on a billboard and run down the street.' There are simple steps IT can take to protect data from hotspot dangers.

Comment Is it Vaporware already? (Score 2, Interesting) 347

by davonshire (#31586912) Attached to: Bill Gates May Build Small Nuclear Reactor

I can't help but notice all the comments about Gates and the cuts over shadowed the main focus of the article being this Traveling Wave Reactor.

A run over to Wikipedia gave me some reason to doubt this amazing power system. Mostly being that it was theorized in 1958, but to date unlike many other reactor types, no one has built a prototype even.

So the question then comes, does anyone know of newer information or why a prototype hasn't been built for testing? It may not put out as much power as a LWR, but it seems it would have exceptional commercial value considering the kind of fuel it uses.

Just curious.

D.S.

Comment Re:Grumble (Score 1) 78

by davonshire (#31200874) Attached to: Opera Open Sources Dragonfly

Go Matt Go! Opera is for the rich and snooty! And you can only enjoy it if the acoustics are just right and you have a decent.. ooh wait....the browser currently known as Opera.

I'll have to sing a different tune now.

Davonshire

Comment The cost of Keeping Us Safe. (Score 1) 248

by davonshire (#26712483) Attached to: IBM Building 20 Petaflop Computer For the US Gov't

When it is complete, it will be yet another amazing accomplishment of computer science, answering a call for a problem created by people who we elected or selected to help guard the citizens of the united states and the world.

The problem of course isn't the focus of article. Nor are the resources this new answer will require made totally clear but at least it gives us a glimps of how much we're willing to spend to maintain the national vision of 'Safe'.

The Hoover dam produces 2.8 Million kilowatts, this consumes about 0.11% of Hoover's capacity, now with the power conversion and distance to source you can expect that to pretty much quadruple in real energy terms. So let's say 0.44%, no mention of how much power the entire facility will need to operate it. (cooling, lighting, communications etc.) but I bet it's at least another 0.1% when properly tallied in.

I think it's great that the government can spend this much money on a machine to help ensure the readiness of our amazing nuclear arsenal. But since this is an enhancment to another machine not long ago built to do the same thing. You have to wonder how much power, money, heat, carbon and whatever else we worry about will be used to build the next machine for the same purpose.

The stockpile of our arsenal should be dwindling till we end up with a nice comfy number of weapons that can only wipe us out 2 or 3 times over.

Does it make you wonder what could happen if this tool was used to help solve some of 'it's own problems?' the one that will ensure come 2012 there's enough power to power it?

Let's hope the DOE has plans to use spare cpu power to find better materials for power production, conduction and storage. The quickest way to ensure prosperity is to have enough power to do all you need and some of your wants.

There is not a single future world utopia that does not demonstrate a ubiquitous availibility of energy. Not Star Trek, Star Wars, Back to the Future II etc etc etc.

While it's reasonable to consider lowering our energy needs in all things, the less we consume, the more, there should be for the future. It is no guarentee. Energy is one thing I do not think anyone can argue, life can exist without in some form or another.

Fusion I prophetically believe is a blind alley that will never produce a sustainable energy credit. At least not in the way it's described currently.

It's not just a question of being able to generate power either, we have to have cheap, economical and plentiful ways to convey the power and store it. We've done great things to increase the efficiency of the things that use the power we currently produce. But no matter how much better we make them eventually it will not outpace our current propensity to consume the power we make.

Turn the problem on it's head and see if any change falls out.

Have a nice day.

<1 kiloflops
Hardware Hacking

Submission + - Fooling around with deep cycle batteries and UPS? 9

Submitted by
ls671
ls671 writes: "I have been experimenting with deep cycles batteries connected directly to APC UPSes for a while and I have grown tired of fooling around with battery chargers (since UPSes can't handle recharging a deep cycle battery). I was looking at a cost of approximately 5000$ to implement a robust solution and I finally came up with a solution that only required to invest 1000$ more than I had already done. You can view the results here."
The Courts

Judge Strikes Down Part of Patriot Act 673

Posted by samzenpus from the but-what-about-the-terrorists dept.
Shining Celebi writes "U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero ruled in favor of the ACLU and struck down a portion of the revised USA PATRIOT Act this morning, forcing investigators to go through the courts to obtain approval before ordering ISPs to give up information on customers, instead of just sending them a National Security Letter. In the words of Judge Marrero, this use of National Security Letters 'offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.'"
Censorship

Submission + - Libraries Defend Open Access

Submitted by aisaac
aisaac writes:
Publisher plans to equate public access to federally funded research with government censorship and the destruction of peer review were exposed earlier this year (Nature, January 25, 2007). In an open letter last month, Rockefeller University Press castigated the Partnership for Research Integrity in Science & Medicine (PRISM) for using distortionary rhetoric in a coordinated PR attack on open access. Now the Association of Research Libraries has released an Issue Brief addressing this PR campaign in more detail. The Issue Brief exposes some of the distortions used to persuade key policy makers that recent gains open access scientific publishing pose a danger to peer reviewed scientific research, free markets, and possibly the future of western civilization. As an example of what the publishers backing PRISM hate, consider the the wonderfully successful grants policy of the National Institutes of Health, which requires papers based on grant-funded research to be published in PubMed Central.
Security

Submission + - Storm Worm is World's Most Powerful Supercomputer (zdnet.com)

Submitted by r0und*m0und
r0und*m0und writes: The Storm Worm Trojan is building what experts believe could be the world's most powerful supercomputer. The Trojan, which uses a myriad of social engineering lures to trick Windows users into downloading malware, has successfully seeded a massive botnet — between one million and 10 million CPUs — producing computing power to rival the world's top 10 supercomputers. By New Zealand computer scientist Peter Gutman's calculations, the Storm Worm botnet "may be the first time that a top 10 supercomputer has been controlled not by a government or mega-corporation but by criminals."
Sci-Fi

Submission + - Are there used book stores with personal service? 1

Submitted by davonshire
davonshire writes: Recently I decided to amass a collection of novels by a specific Science Fiction author who died not long ago. I don't expect that this collection will ever be more valuable than the price I pay for the used books. As such I don't have a lot of demands but I would like a few things that makes building this collection a bit challenging.

I would like the books to be in at least good condition, paperback is fine. Because this author wrote many series, I would like them all to have at least the same cover artist if not the same issue. Because I live where there is not a well stocked store with a good inventory flow. I'm limited to internet/mail order.

Does anyone know of a good, used book store that has personal service? I don't know exactly the nomenclature to use to even search for a store like this. Any help would be appreciated.

TIA.

Davon Shire.

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