Igor Hardy - Slashdot User

Submission + - Facebook bug lets hackers delete friends (cio.com.au)

Submitted by swandives on Monday May 24, 2010 @12:41AM

swandives writes: There's lot of talk about Facebook and privacy at the moment, but a bug in Facebook's website lets hackers delete Facebook friends without permission. Steven Abbagnaro, a student from Marist College in Poughkeepsie, New York reported the flaw, writing proof-of-concept code that scrapes publicly available data from users' Facebook pages and deletes all of their friends, one by one. The victim first has to click on a malicious link while logged into Facebook.

Abbagnaro's code exploits the same underlying flaw that was first reported by Alert Logic security analyst, M.J. Keith, who discovered cross-site request forgery bug, where the website doesn't properly check code sent by users' browsers to ensure that they were authorized to make changes on the site.

Submission + - "Calvin and Hobbes" Creator Bill Watterson Looks (cleveland.com)

Submitted by

ScuttleMonkey

on Monday February 01, 2010 @02:39PM

ScuttleMonkey writes: "With fifteen years separating us from the last appearance of "Calvin and Hobbes" on the comic pages, reclusive artist Bill Watterson gave a rare interview reminiscing about his legacy. "The only part I understand is what went into the creation of the strip. What readers take away from it is up to them. Once the strip is published, readers bring their own experiences to it, and the work takes on a life of its own. Everyone responds differently to different parts. I just tried to write honestly, and I tried to make this little world fun to look at, so people would take the time to read it. That was the full extent of my concern. You mix a bunch of ingredients, and once in a great while, chemistry happens. I can't explain why the strip caught on the way it did, and I don't think I could ever duplicate it. A lot of things have to go right all at once.""

Submission + - A comic book about logic starring Bertrand Russell (nytimes.com)

Submitted by areYouAHypnotist on Friday October 02, 2009 @06:45AM

areYouAHypnotist writes: I believe that a comic book starring the most prominent mathematicians of the 20th century might interest slashdot readers. I have read it and found it quite entertaining. I don't think that people with advance knowledge of the matter will learn anything new and the story takes some liberties with historical accuracy. However is an excellent introduction to complex concepts, not only explaining them with great style but also presenting the historical context and the personal lives of the mathematicians and philosophers who laid the foundations of logic.
I cannot write a review myself so I include the url of the New York Times review.

Submission + - Dad Builds 700 pound Cannon for Son's Birthday 1

Submitted by

Hugh Pickens

on Sunday August 30, 2009 @09:49PM

Hugh Pickens writes: "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. "It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg," says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. "I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift," says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a canon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. "Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top," Logan says."

Blizzard Answers Your Questions and More 368

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Monday August 24, 2009 @03:52PM from the life-in-the-crosshairs dept.

Last week we asked for interview questions to help supplement our face-to-face interviews at Blizzcon. Over the course of the two-day con we were able to sit down with StarCraft II's Dustin Browder, Diablo III's Leonard Boyarsky, WoW's J. Allen Brack, and Battle.net expert Rob Pardo to answer a few questions on each of the four major camps in Blizzard at the moment. Since this wasn't a usual Slashdot-style interview, we tried to use as many of your suggestions as possible, but the conversation often took us in a unique direction once it got rolling.

xkcd To Be Released In Book Form 198

Posted by kdawson on Tuesday August 04, 2009 @12:25AM from the my-normal-approach-is-useless-here dept.

History's Coming To writes "xkcd creator Randall Munroe has revealed on his blag that the acclaimed stick-figure comic will be produced in real dead-tree book form. Fantastic news for all fans of comedy, maths, science, and relationship screw-ups — especially given that the book will be sold in aid of the charity 'Room To Read.' Rumors that the book contains a joke in the ISBN remain unconfirmed." The NY Times article that Munroe links (registration may be required) is from April of this year, and I am amazed that this community didn't note the story at that time. The book will be published by breadpig, which was created by Alexis Ohanian, one of the founders of reddit.

Should Good Indie Games Be More Expensive? 150

Posted by Soulskill on Tuesday April 14, 2009 @06:47AM from the i-wonder-what-the-internet-will-say dept.

spidweb writes "Indie gaming blog The Bottom Feeder has an article on why independent games should be more expensive. The enforced low prices on XBox Live, Amazon, and iTunes might feel good now, but they'll kill off the variety and depth gamers are hoping indie developers can provide. From the article: 'Every year, life is getting more and more expensive. Insurance. Rent. Food. And, at the same time, games are getting cheaper and cheaper, sometimes as cheap as a dollar, as we engage in a full speed race to the bottom. This is not going to help developers stay in business. This is not how a healthy industry is maintained.'"

Comment Re:So then (Score 1) 74

by Igor Hardy on Sunday March 01, 2009 @04:21PM (#27032319) Attached to: Creating 3D Environments Without Polygons

Erm, isn't "the illusion of a real life 3D world" what all 3D graphics is about? Anyway, I don't know what videos have you watched, but this IS a game with full 3D environment, which is explorable the same way as locations done in traditional 3D. Sure, the technology has lots of limitations, the biggest in my opinion is not being able to register things in motion (they have to be done the traditional way), but I find its possibilities very interesting nevertheless.

Comment Re:Polygons (Score 1) 74

by Igor Hardy on Sunday March 01, 2009 @03:39PM (#27031941) Attached to: Creating 3D Environments Without Polygons

I'm not particularly technically minded, but it did cross my mind that the title I've chosen might be considered as a bit faulty. Still, everything that is shown on a screen is a rectangle in some way. I could have titled this article "3D Environments with one polygon a frame", but everyone would immediately think that it is about some simple 2D trick.

Submission + - Creating 3D environments without polygons! (adventureclassicgaming.com)

Submitted by

Igor Hardy

on Sunday March 01, 2009 @09:55AM

Igor Hardy writes: "I've conducted a very interesting interview concerning a new episodic indie adventure game series called Casebook. What's quite uncommon, especially for these kind of independently developed and published productions, they include professionally created FMV — the entire footage filmed in real locations. Yet what is even more interesting, the games use an innovative photographic technology that recreates a fully, explorable, 3D environment through the use of millions of photos instead of building from polygons. How it works exactly is explained by Sam Clarkson the creative director of the series."

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