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Comment Re:The Difference? (Score 4, Insightful) 32

"And of course the only reason people get Win 11 is because it comes with the new PC they just bought."

What many people don't know though, you can install Windows 10 over the OEM Windows 11 install, and it will automagically activate with the same key. Just need to disable TPM from Bios settings to prevent an automatic Windows 11 update (really a downgrade) again.
Programming

Why DARPA Hopes To 'Distill' Old Binaries Into Readable Code (theregister.com) 54

Posted by BeauHD from the non-hacky-methods dept.
Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a prototype pipeline for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) that can "distill" binary executables into human-intelligible code so that it can be updated and deployed in "weeks, days, or hours, in some cases." The work is part of a five-year, $10 million project with the agency. The Register reports: After running an executable through the university's "distillation" process, software engineers should be able to examine the generated HAR, figure out what the code does, and make changes to add new features, patch bugs, or improve security, and turn the HAR back into executable code, says GT associate professor and project participant Brendan Saltaformaggio. This would be useful for, say, updating complex software that was written by a contractor or internal team, the source code is no longer or never was to hand and neither are its creators, and stuff needs to be fixed up. Reverse engineering the binary and patching in an update by hand can be a little hairy, hence DARPA's desire for something a bit more solid and automatic. The idea is to use this pipeline to freshen up legacy or outdated software that may have taken years and millions of dollars to develop some time ago.

Saltaformaggio told El Reg his team has the entire process working from start to finish, and with some level of stability, too. "DARPA sets challenges they like to use to test the capabilities of a project," he told us over the phone. "So far we've handled every challenge problem DARPA's thrown at us, so I'd say it's working pretty well." Saltaformaggio said his team's pipeline disassembles binaries into a graph structure with pseudo-code, and presented in a way that developers can navigate, and replace or add parts in C and C++. Sorry, Java devs and Pythonistas: Saltaformaggio tells us that there's no reason the system couldn't work with other programming languages, "but we're focused on C and C++. Other folks would need to build out support for that." Along with being able to deconstruct, edit, and reconstruct binaries, the team said its processing pipeline is also able to comb through HARs and remove extraneous routines. The team has also, we're told, baked in verification steps to ensure changes made to code within hardware ranging from jets and drones to plain-old desktop computers work exactly as expected with no side effects.

Comment Small update (Score 5, Insightful) 129

From after I submitted it, it looks like they blanket banned all negative reviews, at least all those mentioning privacy issues with the "anti-cheat". So the number of people being collateral damage, because of Valve's obviously faulty system, is probably much more than the original 2400.

The Steam review system has been one of the things that made Steam the better platform above the rest. But if people can no longer vote any reviews helpful, or are too afraid to even add reviews, it would sadly render the whole review system pointless.

At the least, Valve needs to revise the system around these voting bans (and perhaps have a long discussion with the "Steam moderator" who banned the reviews in the first place). The current system is not very good PR for Valve, not even Amazon punishes people for marking reviews helpful.

Submission + - Valve restricts accounts of 2500 users who marked a negative game review useful

Submitted by jth1234567
jth1234567 writes: In late January, a Steam user posted a negative review for the game Warlander, warning potential buyers about the shady anti-cheat system the game was using, the apparent problems being intrusive data collection and difficult removal after the game itself had been uninstalled (the review text is no longer available). This review stayed on top as the most helpful review for nearly three months, which must have been a big thorn in the side for the developer and the publisher.

Until yesterday, when they managed to get a Steam moderator to remove the negative review. In a perfect, consumer-friendly world it should have been another way around, and the game's sales page removed until the claims were investigated by Valve, but this is not a perfect world. However, things didn't end there.

Apparently the Steam moderator categorized the negative review as "attempting to scam users or other violations of Steam's Rules & Guidelines", which meant that all those 2439 people (plus people who have it 437 awards) got their accounts restricted for 30 days, during this time none of them can up- or downvote any Steam reviews at all.

Support tickets from affected users to Steam Support have received a default response saying Support will not help nor adjust the length of vote bans.

The Steam review system was never perfect, but the impact of this kind of behavior from Valve will render the whole system completely pointless, as negative reviews can be culled by the developers/publishers at any time, and people will just stop marking any negative review as useful to avoid these kinds of repercussions.

Comment Re:Er, Your Statement and His Don't Quite Mix (Score 1) 744

by jth1234567 (#39806773) Attached to: 'Gaia' Scientist Admits Mispredicting Rate of Climate Change

during that same time period, the sea ice in the Antarctic, you know, at the other end of the planet, has been increasing.

However, ice levels have recently been decreasing on the Antarctic too.

A new study sheds some light on the actual process:

http://www.ice2sea.eu/news/news-release-pritchard-nature/

Comment Re:UO wasn't that much fun really (Score 3, Interesting) 480

by jth1234567 (#31227678) Attached to: Why Are There No Popular <em>Ultima Online</em>-Like MMOs?

Throughout the entire history of WoW all the way from release until today, PvP realms as a whole have been less popular then PvE realms.

Interestingly, with European servers the situation was exactly the opposite at least during the first year after launch. I don't know if it has changed since then.
User Journal

Submission + - The Speed Gamers raise over $18 000 for Autism 1

Submitted by
Levonn Lawrence
Levonn Lawrence writes: "Moving in to day 4 of 7, TSG (The Speed Gamers) continue to play a Final Fantasy marathon for an unusual reason. The reason being... Charity. The guys at TSG are playing through every main Final Fantasy game from one to twelve, over a period of 7 days in hopes or raising $20 000 for ACT Today (Autism Care and Treatment). ACT is a charity helping to financially support families effected by Autism. The marathon started 6pm CST, Friday, July 17th, 2009 and is going until Friday, July 24th 2009. So far they've raised over $18 000 (not a typo) and they're only 70 hours in. Stop by and donate, message, and give them all the support you can. http://www.thespeedgamers.com/"
Games

The Art of Downloadable Game Development 32

Posted by Soulskill from the get-used-to-it dept.
The Guardian's Games Blog looks at how the development of downloadable games has shifted over the past several years. As an example, they point to Capcom, its recent reinvention of the Mega Man franchise, and an upcoming game called Flock. Quoting: "[CEO Paddy Sinclair said], 'The first thing we realised was, it wouldn't be as easy as we thought. Luckily we're funded privately so we had the luxury of getting it wrong. It was very... educational. We learned very quickly that, no, you can't write a game in three months. We also realized we'd need a bigger team than just two or three.' 'The XBLA market has really evolved,' continues business development head, Chris Wright. 'If you look at the very early games they were simple ports — single-player, retro emulation titles, and you can kick those out very quickly. That market is disappearing. If you're going to do retro remakes you have to extend it, you have to add multiplayer. If you're going to do something new, it has to be bigger. We've got a team of 10-12 people working on this title. If you look back, it's what we would have had on PS1, and the game is probably of the same sort of size. It's not the huge budgets of a retail title, but it's not a trivial undertaking, either.'"
Power

Man Invents Alternative To Cooking Gas 553

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the human-invention-will-find-a-way dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Gazan resident Abed Ar-Rahman has revealed what he is claiming as an alternative to cooking gas that he developed since Israel has prevented deliveries of cooking gas to Gaza. He invented a device using chemical substances available in Gaza, which burn when mixed and brought into contact with oxygen. The first component is a metal filter that controls the interaction between 40% of the oxygen in the surrounding air, the inflammable substance and some other substances."

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