I hadn't heard of Penn's Sunday School, but it looks interesting. Thanks for the suggestion.

And the second half of my question:

I remember you posting the voicemail of the Microsoft employee asking you to remove the images of the Xbox ROM from your website -- something I got a good laugh out of. What other kind of fallout from Microsoft that you have to deal with?

I don't agree that multiple question marks necessarily == multiple questions, but I'll take the advice of my anonymous friends and restructure my question:

During your original Xbox expose, was there a memorable experience you had that stands out -- perhaps a particular part of the hardware that you found especially well-designed (or laughably poor), or maybe a method that yielded unexpected success (or failure)?

One of my first forays into the realm of hardware hacking was following along as you recorded your exploration of the original Xbox console. I was fascinated by the hardware, but enjoyed your analysis and methods even more. It was you that got me interested in hardware and hacking. (Aside: Thank you very much for releasing your book as a freely-available download and for the open-letter about Aaron and MIT)

What was the most memorable experience for you of your Xbox expose? Was there a particular part of the hardware that you found especially well-designed (or laughably poor)? A method that yielded unexpected success (or failure)? What kind of fallout from Microsoft did you face? I remember you posting the voicemail of the Microsoft employee asking you to remove the images of the Xbox ROM -- something I got a good laugh out of. And as a follow-up: do you have a feeling for how "secure" hardware has changed in the decade since the original Xbox launch?

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions, and also for all the work you've done pushing for a world with both open software and open hardware.

I noticed something the other day when looking for a copy of the install on my own system. It turns out that when you install TrueCrypt for Windows, it puts a copy of the installer in the destination directory! If you're on Windows, take a look in your %ProgramFiles%\TrueCrypt directory. You will probably find a TrueCrypt Setup.exe file (at work so not sure of the exact filename). This can be used to install/repair/reinstall TrueCrypt on any computer.

There have been some good attempts to create a trustworthy TrueCrypt archive, but nothing beats your original installation source, which you can use to verify against various signatures found online.

You still can, though it might depend on what size of TV you're looking for. I'm in the market for a new TV right now, and I've noticed that Costco carries "dumb" TVs up through the 40" range. There are both smart and dumb sets at 40", with the dumb sets being about $75 cheaper.

But yes, if you're looking for a large set you may have a hard time avoiding them at this point.

TFA discusses that:

And for anyone wondering just why the hell anyone would want this, TFA clarifies:

So let me get this right... "Punch the Monkey", coming to a TV near you? Flashing and bouncing "Take the "Which Ninja Turtle are you most like?" poll for a chance to win $1000!!!"? Malicious "Your TV isn't secure! Click here to upgrade!" ads that install some bullshit TV "app" that does only god-knows-what? Remote scripting running on a device designed without any security in mind, and which will probably never be updated during its 8+ year lifetime?

How can I make this clear? Do. Not. Fucking. Want. Yet another reason to avoid "smart" TVs, I guess.

I agree with you 100%, with two small exceptions.

First, it does appear that Watterson is a bit more removed from society than even your average author.

Second, I think there's a kernel of reason in the idea that someone of renown -- someone who has made a lot of money and become a familiar name in the process -- is expected to give a little bit back to their "fans" in return for benefiting them so much financially. In no way to do mean that Watterson should be on Celebrity Jeopardy (he'd probably never beat Sean Connery anyway), but it might be nice if he did small things like book signings at local bookstores. I have that nice set of hardcover Calvin and Hobbes books, and I would absolutely love to have an opportunity to get it signed by Watterson. Sadly, autographs is one of the things that Watterson appears to refuse to do.

As someone who would probably be called a "recluse" by more than a couple of people, I can truly understand to desire to be removed from the limelight, but still, it's sad for those who adore his work that they don't have the opportunity to try and express that just a tiny bit.

Interesting, thanks for sharing.

If you happen to know, I noticed in the picture of the sheet of dies that there are a fair number of gaps. Are these failures in the die manufacturing process, or something else?

Descent was the first game that really blew my mind when it came to graphics and gameplay together. The difficulty curve was perfect, and the continued addition of new game elements made it stay fresh (and Descent II was even better at this than the first game).

It's also the reason I bought (or more acurrately, convinced my father to buy) a very nice joystick. There's a reason fighter pilots don't control their planes with WASD.

And who can forget the 3D wireframe maps which, towards the end of the game, got insanely complicated? I can't begin to guess how much time I spent trying to figure out just where the hell I was, where the hell I was trying to go, and how the hell to get there :D

That's a fantastic point. Fixing your link: Lewis Galoob Toys, Inc. v. Nintendo of America, Inc. In the same way that Game Genie didn't infringe on Nintendo's copyright, the court should rule that this game modification does not infringe on Blizzard's.

I like to think of it as a variation of Plato's Forms -- the copyrighted product "Starcraft II" exists only as what is on-disk -- a fixed collection of code, art, and everything else that makes up the game. However, once this "ideal" form of the product is loaded into the computer's memory, it becomes a separate and mutable thing. The game itself has become a different and derivative thing simply by executing it, and any number of things can cause that state to be changed. This one single participant of the "Starcraft II" form is ephemeral and isn't being distributed (redistribution being the one reason their suit might be reasonable).

Trust me, I hate people who cheat against others as much as anyone, but this is a much larger issue with far-reaching consequences. Restricting what someone can do with code running on their own computer is a slippery slope, and we have already had enough ignorant court rulings (such as Blizzard v. bnetd). There's also the question of single-player cheating -- should it be illegal for someone to mod their single-player game, to give themselves infinite health, for example?

Blizzard is attempting to rectify a relatively simple technical flaw through the court system, and that's just sad. I hope you're right, AC, that the Game Genie precedent will be upheld.

Exactly this. UX as a whole is a cancer on modern computing -- nothing more than a combination of follow-the-leader and a circle-jerk. All it takes is for someone presents a (completely wrong) idea and, as long as they are authoritative about it, the other UX sheep will view that opinion as gospel, not to be questioned but only blindly followed. This might be a teacher at a school or a company like Google.

A perfect recent example is this Stack Exchange question regarding traffic signals. An ignorant (but inquisitive) person asks why traffic signals are always three vertical lights instead of some cool new UX-y system of LEDs and poor contrast. An answer posted which sounded very authoritative (but included no references) and had a few pretty pictures was immediately up-voted by the other UX sheep, even though the answer is completely wrong. The author eventually went and made some edits to claim his view was "just historical" to cover up the fact that he was glaringly wrong about the issue of color blindness.

You can see this behavior everywhere. Microsoft following Apple, Mozilla following Google. It has nothing to do with something being empiraclly or evidently better -- it's simply everyone following the hipster cool kid in class around because, well, he wouldn't be popular if he wasn't right!

We've had computer usability studies for decades now which have provided some keen insights into how people intuit the function of computer (some very interesting ones from the original Mac and Windows 95 timeframes). UX, however, has nothing to do with research or study -- it's little more than populist bullshit.

FTFY.

The simple fact is that Do-Not-Track was a damned bogus idea from the outset. Saying to the massive web of advertising conglamorates and third parties -- all of which make more money the more they can identify you down to an individual -- "Won't you kindly not track me? That would just be great, thanks" is akin to asking the mob nicely not to burn your place down when you refuse to pay protection money, or calling up the NSA and asking them nicely to stop spying on your personal affairs.

If you don't want to be tracked, you need to take steps to make it happen yourself. The tools are there -- use them. If enough people start blocking all forms of advertising, perhaps the intrusiveness and privacy violation will recede. Or maybe the entire advertising industry will collapse (one can always dream).

Interesting. It looks like a ripoff^Wcopy of I Wanna Be The Guy (which is free and completely awesome, btw), but with slower gameplay and looser controls.