It’s not as if it’s a new idea, but the expansion of Rock-Paper-Scissors that includes a poisonous reptile and a logical Vulcan may become more popular thanks to the newest episode of The Big Bang Theory. And it really does make a lot of sense, considering the limited number of outcomes in the original version. If you are unfamiliar with the expansion’s rules, let me break it down for you:
Scissors cut paper.
Paper covers rock.
Rock crushes lizard.
Lizard poisons Spock.
Spock smashes scissors.
Scissors decapitate lizard.
Lizard eats paper.
Paper disproves Spock.
Spock vaporizes rock.
Rock crushes scissors.
Of course, what I don’t understand about their problem in the last scene is why someone didn’t choose lizard. After all, if everyone else is putting up Spock, then the best choices are Lizard (which poisons Spock) or Paper (which disproves Spock), and Lizard also beats Paper (by eating it). Is loyalty to your favorite Vulcan really more important than winning?
Out of all the things I’ve wondered about in life, one of them is whether Presidents, Prime Ministers and other heads of State can do private email and correspond privately with friends and family online. Putting aside whether they have the time to do it, the bigger questions are the practical, security, legal and logistical concerns. But this New York Times article is an excellent overview of the whole situation concerning what President-Elect Obama is facing when he takes office on January 20th.
Obama, apparently a big Blackberry fan, is going to have to give up his device because of the Presidential Records Act and of concerns over email security. He instead hopes to become the first US president to have a laptop on his desk in the Oval Office (what operating system will it have? Windows or Linux?!)
As the NYT article points out, President Bush stopped corresponding by private email because he was concerned that his private email correspondence might fall into the wrong hands and cause embarrassment. You only have to look at how a hacker broke into Governor Sarah Palin’s Yahoo account to know how much embarrassment can be brought upon a political figure with the contents of their email account. So as a politician (such as Obama) scales the vast political heights into the White House, ordinary things such as sending an email becomes an increasingly impossible task.
Then there’s the time factor. Presidents probably don’t have the time to do private email after 3.00am phone calls and saving the world.
But Obama is showing everyone that he is determined to change every rule that he encounters. So he may very well decide to set up [email protected] and start emailing from the Oval Office. He’s already sending out YouTube video addresses so anything is possible!
Remember when Sierra ruled the PC world? At least, that’s how it seemed to me in the nineties. Most of the my favorite games were from Roberta Williams (King’s Quest & Laura Bow), and when I was in high school and finally ventured past the white picket fences of AOL, I discovered Acrophobia, and my very first MMORPG… The Realm.
It was one of the first of its kind, beating Ultima Online‘s launch by about a year, but I suspect it was kind of overshadowed after that since you don’t really hear much about it in the history of the genre. The graphics were great for 1996, very cartoon-like, similar to King’s Quest VII. The gameplay was easy and intuitive, combat turn-based, and role-playing actually pretty common. Even from the way that you moved, going east/west/south/north from any given screen, it was basically a graphical MUD. (Random trivia: You could buy dye to change the color of your clothes, which I always thought would be a great improvement to World of Warcraft, where half the characters walk around looking like they were dressed by blind circus clowns.)
Of course, here’s the interesting thing: it’s still around! Twelve years later, the number of accounts has dropped from about 25,000 at its peak to about 3,000, but there are still 100-200 players online at a given time during peak hours. Now run by Norseman Games, the Realm Online website boasts “Dial-Up Friendly” and “Basic System Requirements.” Well, I would hope so, for a 12-year-old game! Of course, that means I can play it on my laptop with no problem (something I can’t say for the newer MMORPGs).
Feeling nostalgic, I signed up for a seven-day free trial, downloaded the game, and played it for a while. It’s exactly as I remember it, if a bit emptier. I’m a little surprised that there haven’t been any improvements made at all, but I suppose that just adds to the “classic” feel. Of course, after that free trial, an account is $6.99 a month. Which, in my opinion, is a bit steep for nostalgia. It might be half the price of WoW or City of Heroes, but it’s also less than half the game.
Still, for those who have dial-up, or less powerful computers, or an even bigger sense of nostalgia than I, The Realm might actually be the perfect MMORPG.
Anyone in the cyber field that has been involved in a network investigation to determine the source and scope of a compromise knows that the process is time intensive. Traditionally, such investigations require logfiles from various sources: routers, firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and maybe packet captures from a sniffer if you have one. Reconstructing the sessions require matching up the timestamps, whiteboarding the data flows, and storing the logs for evidence in case law enforcement is involved. Only the truly skilled can determine exactly what was stolen from the network.
But along comes the former US Cyber Czar, Amit Yoran, with his company’s flagship product- Netwitness Investigator. This tool can reconstruct a network compromise on the fly, and it does so without the need to understand Hexidecimal code or have a protocol analyzer handy. All sessions are reconstructed so the analyst can see exactly what the attackers did- Web surfing sessions are rebuilt, emails and their attachments are reconstructed, VOIP is reassembled in an easy-to-listen player, and you can even map out the complete attack using Google Earth!
If you have ever watched 24 and scoffed at the abilities of the CTU cyber team to instantly analyze the sources of internet attacks or communications, scoff no more. Netwitness’ Investigator would make those tasks possible. The software, developed as a project for the CIA, is already in use in many government and national law enforcement agencies.
This is the first software I have ever installed that comes with links to a YouTube channel for easy to follow training on how to use the product. There is a registration process but it goes quickly. Amit assured me that this is not in any way a watered down version of their product. The free version has all of the functionality of the commercial Investigator. It does have limits set on the size of a session that can be recorded of 1 gig. That should be more than enough for most investigations.
This tool represents a giant leap forward for cyber professionals. It consolidates many tools that have been around for a decade into an easy-to-use package for network forensics. And it should be an invaluable weapon in the fight against black hat hackers, ID thieves, and phishers too.
In the Latest “Get a Mac” commercial, our friend “PC” isn’t really happy about the result of the new Mac customer satisfaction survey, so he decides to take the matter in his own hands.
If you went to see Quantum of Solace this weekend, chances are you’ve also seen the whole new Star Trek movie trailer. For those who didn’t have this chance, we have it right here, courtesy of some unknown villain who shot the whole thing with a mobile device. Enjoy!
We’ve been talking about how multi-touch technologies would soon make spatial gesture computing a possibility, a bit like what we see happening in Steven Spielberg’s movie, Minority Report. Well folks, it seems that the day when we’ll be able to manipulate data and object in real 3D space isn’t that far off. Dubbed g-speak, Oblong‘s new spatial operating environment is, according to its creators, the first major step in computer interface since 1984. Video after the jump.
A European player, “Nymh,” on the Drek’Thar server, was the first to reach the new Level 80 cap in World of Warcraft (previously, the highest level was 70) one day after the official launch of Wrath of the Lich King. According to an interview with the mad grinder, he hit the new max 27 hours after the European servers went online. Nymh is a human affliction/demonology warlock.
Of course, no triumph is complete without some controversy, and some WoW players are saying that someone else was cheated out of the prestige of hitting 80 first. Apparently Athene (already well-known for a series of popular YouTube videos) was banned by a GM just before getting to 80 some 10 hours before Nymh hit the mark. Athene’s crime? Mob tagging. This basically involves having a group killing mobs, but grouping and degrouping at the right times so that a single player gets all the XP. Supposedly Athene was told by one GM that this was legit, and then ultimately banned by another.
Other players seem to disagree about who should be getting the credit for the first 80. A criticism of Nymh’s method is that there was a pet healer assisting through the grind; some point out that that’s just another case of one player in a group getting all of the XP.
Still, whether Athene should or should not have been banned, Nymh is definitely the first actual level 80 in all of Azeroth, evidenced by this screenshot. I wonder if it seems worth it, 27 hours later? At least there’s something else to look forward to: actual new game content!
YouTube is finally monetizing their video clips – and the adverts are not bad at all. Not really obtrusive or “in your face” as many users had feared they would be.
I was looking at the current Chad Vader video (which wasn’t that funny so I didn’t bother posting it on GAS) and right away, you will see an “Ads by Google” strip along the bottom of the video screen.
As you can see, this is easily closed by a small X box on the right hand side so no big deal. But if you close it, the thin black bar still remains with an option to reopen the advert if you want to.
Then at the end, you have the Adsense adverts, related to what you have just been watching :
When Google started making noises some time back about monetizing YouTube, rumours starting leaking out that adverts would inserted in front of the video clips and users would be forced to watch those adverts before the video clips began. Stories like this began to make YouTube users uneasy about Google’s exact plans for making a profit on YouTube and although anything can happen in the future, Google has proven that they can advertise and make a profit using subtle advertising like this.
A new Watchmen trailer has just been released. Check it out:
I still can’t understand why this one wasn’t included in the “50 biggest movies of 2009” list. Watchmen is going to be THE movie of 2009 for geeks. Still four months to wait… sigh.
