Squeak - Slashdot User

Comment Technical ineptitude (Score 1) 94

by Squeak on Tuesday May 15, 2012 @04:44AM (#40003127) Attached to: Report Highlights 10 Sites Unfairly Blocked By UK Mobile Internet Censorship

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. From the article:
For example, parents may not be aware that network-level blocking systems are unable to selectively filter ‘encrypted’ traffic. ‘Https’ encryption is a way to make traffic unreadable by intermediaries such as ISPs. It is widely used in online financial transactions, for example. It is also increasingly common in routine, everyday Internet use. New browsers are built to check if encryption is available, and if so, to use it. Encryption makes it impossible for an ISP to ‘check’ the web address the user is visiting.
For example, recently BT was ordered by a court to block customers’ access to ‘Newzbin2’. But that does not prevent people from visiting ‘https://www.newzbin.com’.

Somebody doesn't understand the difference between an address and a protocol.

Officials Sue Couple Who Removed Their Lawn 819

Posted by kdawson on Wednesday March 03, 2010 @01:39AM from the revenge-of-the-lawn dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The LA Times reports that Orange County officials are locked in a legal battle with a couple accused of violating city ordinances for replacing the grass on their lawn with wood chips and drought-tolerant plants, reducing their water usage from 299,221 gallons in 2007 to 58,348 gallons in 2009. The dispute began two years ago, when Quan and Angelina Ha tore out the grass in their front yard. In drought-plagued Southern California, the couple said, the lush grass had been soaking up tens of thousands of gallons of water — and hundreds of dollars — each year. 'We've got a newborn, so we want to start worrying about her future,' said Quan Ha, an information technology manager for Kelley Blue Book. But city officials told the Has they were violating several city laws that require that 40% of residential yards to be landscaped predominantly with live plants. Last summer, the couple tried to appease the city by building a fence around the yard and planting drought-tolerant greenery — lavender, rosemary, horsetail, and pittosporum, among others. But according to the city, their landscaping still did not comply with city standards. At the end of January, the Has received a letter saying they had been charged with a misdemeanor violation and must appear in court. The couple could face a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine for their grass-free, eco-friendly landscaping scheme. 'It's just funny that we pay our taxes to the city and the city is now prosecuting us with our own money,' says Quan Ha."

Ubisoft's Constant Net Connection DRM Confirmed 631

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday February 18, 2010 @03:26AM from the enjoy-getting-flamed-by-the-entire-internet dept.

A few weeks ago we discussed news of Ubisoft's DRM plans for future games, which reportedly went so far as to require a constant net connection, terminating your game if you get disconnected for any reason. Well, it's here; upon playing review copies of the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 and Settlers VII, PCGamer found the DRM just as annoying as you might expect. Quoting: "If you get disconnected while playing, you're booted out of the game. All your progress since the last checkpoint or savegame is lost, and your only options are to quit to Windows or wait until you're reconnected. The game first starts the Ubisoft Game Launcher, which checks for updates. If you try to launch the game when you're not online, you hit an error message right away. So I tried a different test: start the game while online, play a little, then unplug my net cable. This is the same as what happens if your net connection drops momentarily, your router is rebooted, or the game loses its connection to Ubisoft's 'Master servers.' The game stopped, and I was dumped back to a menu screen — all my progress since it last autosaved was lost."

Steampunk Con Mixes In More Maker Fun 50

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday February 15, 2010 @06:15PM from the rebuttal-of-disposable-culture dept.

California has once again been blessed with another steampunk convention, this time to be held in Emeryville, CA on March 12-14 as the "Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition." This year's event promises to mix in much more of the DIY/maker flavor for a greater hands-on feel. Steampunk has been gaining much broader appeal in recent months with the continued growth of maker communities, and the many delightful varieties of music and literature. The con will feature, among other things, a 2 day track of 2-hour how-to, hands-on, and interactive workshops gear towards makers, DIY-ers, mad scientists, and evil geniuses. Of course, if you are an evil genius you probably don't need a workshop except as a gathering for potential test subjects.

Facebook Mafiosi Go To the Mattresses vs. Zynga 102

Posted by Soulskill on Thursday December 17, 2009 @01:15AM from the concrete-galoshes dept.

sympleko writes "Zynga has the lion's share of traffic in Facebook applications, and Mafia Wars is one of their most popular social games. Collapsing under the weight of over 26 million users, Zynga has been scrambling to thwart hard-core gamers who reverse-engineer URLs or script the game to optimize their enjoyment. Many of the workarounds have annoyed users who were accustomed to various game features, and even worse, the hastily-deployed changes have resulted in many players losing access to the game, in-game prizes, or statistics. Fed up with a software company seemingly bent on discouraging people from enjoying their product, a number of tagged players have organized a boycott of all Zynga games. The first 24-hour boycott on Sunday 12/13 resulted in an 11% decline in Daily Active Users, and an emergency thread on Zynga's forums (from which most of the flames were deleted). The current boycott, extending Wednesday through Sunday is being supported by a 428K strong Facebook group. At issue is the social contract between software companies and their devoted user base, as well as the nefarious tactics Zynga has used to raise cash."

Dad Delivers Baby Using Wiki 249

Posted by samzenpus on Tuesday December 15, 2009 @05:29PM from the 9cm-edited dept.

sonamchauhan writes "A Londoner helped his wife deliver their baby by Googling 'how to deliver a baby' on his mobile phone. From the article: 'Today proud Mr Smith said: "The midwife had checked Emma earlier in the day but contractions started up again at about 8pm so we called the midwife to come back. But then everything happened so quickly I realized Emma was going to give birth. I wasn't sure what I was going to do so I just looked up the instructions on the internet using my BlackBerry."'"

Infinity Ward Fights Against Modern Warfare 2 Cheaters 203

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @07:56AM from the be-careful-they-cheat dept.

Faithbleed writes "IW's Robert Bowling reports on his twitter account that Infinity Ward is giving 2,500 Modern Warfare 2 cheaters the boot. The news comes as the war between IW and MW2's fans rages over the decision to go with IWnet hosting instead of dedicated servers. Unhappy players were quick to come up with hacks that would allow their own servers and various other changes." Despite the dedicated-server complaints, Modern Warfare 2 has sold ridiculously well.

Nintendo Upset Over Nokia Game Emulation Video 189

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday December 01, 2009 @02:45AM from the super-mario-takedown dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo is investigating potential copyright infringement by Nokia during some video demos of their N900 phone, which can be seen emulating Nintendo games. Nintendo spokesman Robert Saunders says: 'We take rigorous steps to protect our IP and our legal team will examine this to determine if any infringement has taken place.' In the video, Nokia says, 'Most publishers allow individual title usage, provided that the user is in possession of the original title.'"

Comment Re:Now I Understand Lasers (Score 1) 559

by Squeak on Tuesday June 02, 2009 @06:11AM (#28179517) Attached to: Laser Blast Makes Regular Light Bulbs Super-Efficient

Oh please go and learn the difference between watts and joules.

Submission + - chinese shoot down satellite

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday January 19, 2007 @05:00AM

An anonymous reader writes: WASHINGTON — The Chinese military shot down one of its own aging satellites with a ground-based ballistic missile last week, demonstrating a new technological capability at a time of growing Bush administration concern over Beijing's military modernization and its intentions in space. http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-fg-satellite1 9jan19,0,1196978.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Submission + - USA Wire Tapping Policy Reversed

Submitted by

Anonymous Coward

on Friday January 19, 2007 @03:37AM

Anonymous Coward writes: "Bush Administration backs down on wiretapping we all know that one of the biggest scandals in 2006 was the question of the US government spying on it's own people — this policy has been reversed this past Wednesday and Democracy Now reports as well as ever, the facts of this important story. Seems you're a little freer."

Submission + - Notebook Carry Case To Charge Laptop And Mobile

Submitted by

Taneja

on Friday January 19, 2007 @03:17AM

Taneja writes: "If you do not have enough time to charge the notebook you can always stuff it into your solar carry bag and place it at the back of the car, behind the seats and let the sun do the charging while you drive or just carry it around while you walk....
notebook laptop charger
Read more at
http://gadgets.in/content/view/62/58/"

Submission + - John Carmack: Gamers Don't Need Vista or DX 10

Submitted by Freshly Exhumed on Friday January 19, 2007 @02:29AM

Freshly Exhumed writes: In an interview with Marcus Yam at Daily Tech legendary PC/Console game creator John Carmack holds forth on DirectX 10: "Personally, I wouldn't jump at something like DX10 right now. I would let things settle out a little bit and wait until there's a really strong need for it." and then zings Microsoft's marketers over DX10's mandatory use of the Vista OS: "Carmack then said that he's quite satisfied with Windows XP, going as far to say that Microsoft is 'artificially' forcing gamers to move to Windows Vista for DX10." There are a few good tidbits on Xbox 360 vs. PS3 development, and a fairly clear disinterest in Wii as a platform for his company's products is shown.

Slashdot Top Deals