Year is closing down quick and I doubt I'm going to beat any more games :(

Right now I'm clearing my backlog of scanning stuff, but after about another 100 pages I'll totally do my writeup. Well, after I scan 100 pages and play some more Assassin's Creed II, which is really quite fun so far (though I have no idea if it will stay that way or nosedive like the first one did).

I finished Deus Ex: Invisible War last night, clocking in something like 8 1/2 hours, though I believe there was another hour or two there not counted from dying/reloading/experimenting. Started off weak, ended weak, had some neat stuff throughout the middle. The interface for the game never really got tolerable and I'm still struggling to understand why they made some of the decisions that they did (especially with regard to the inability to holster a weapon, the way you manage your inventory, biomod selection/deselection, etc).

They simplified the RPG elements to make it more accessible, bringing it closer to an action/adventure...but the levels were so constricted and small that it totally negated the adventure element. The game didn't work well with an action-centric focus either, so the only thing it really had going for it was the ability to accomplish missions in a number of different ways.

If you're a fan of Deus Ex, I'd recommend against checking the game out. It's not that it's outright bad, it's just that it's a major step down in pretty much every way short of the graphics (I really do not like how they handled the Templars in the story, btw). It's not really a good introduction to the series, but I guess if you have zero intention of ever playing the first game and you're interested in checking out an FPS that does it all a little different, maybe you'll dig it. Personally, I think Project Snowblind was a much better attempt at taking Deus Ex and turning it into an action game.

Oh, and that Steam sale? It's killing my wallet, bro :(

Anniversary of a cosmic blast

The sheer amount energy generated is difficult to comprehend. Although the crust probably shifted by only a centimeter, the incredible density and gravity made that a violent event well beyond anything we mere humans have experienced. The blast of energy surged away from the magnetar, out into the galaxy. In just a fifth of a second, the eruption gave off as much energy as the Sun does in a quarter of a million years.

Oh, and did I mention this magnetar is 50,000 light years away? No? That's 300 quadrillion miles away, about halfway across the freaking Milky Way galaxy itself!

And yet, even at that mind-crushing distance, it fried satellites and physically affected the Earth. It was so bright some satellites actually saw it reflected off the surface of the Moon! I'll note that a supernova, the explosion of an entire star, has a hard time producing any physical effect on the Earth if it's farther away than, say, 100 light years. Even a gamma-ray burst can only do any damage if it's closer than 8000 light years or so.

Tags: doomed, space
Current Music: Massive Attack -- Superpredators

Tags: eyes
Current Music: The Drum Club -- Furry Meadows

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/separating_expl.html

Chechen terrorists did it in 2004. I said this in an interview with then TSA head Kip Hawley in 2007:

I don't want to even think about how much C4 I can strap to my legs and walk through your magnetometers.

And what sort of magical thinking is behind the rumored TSA rule about keeping passengers seated during the last hour of flight? Do we really think the terrorist won't think of blowing up their improvised explosive devices during the first hour of flight?

For years I've been saying this:

Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.

This week, the second one worked over Detroit. Security succeeded.

EDITED TO ADD (12/26): Only one carry on? No electronics for the first hour of flight? I wish that, just once, some terrorist would try something that you can only foil by upgrading the passengers to first class and giving them free drinks.

Bugs Inside: What Happens When the Microbes That Keep Us Healthy Disappear?

The human body has some 10 trillion human cells -- but 10 times that number of microbial cells. So what happens when such an important part of our bodies goes missing?

With rapid changes in sanitation, medicine and lifestyle in the past century, some of these indigenous species are facing decline, displacement and possibly even extinction. In many of the world's larger ecosystems, scientists can predict what might happen when one of the central species is lost, but in the human microbial environment -- which is still largely uncharacterized -- most of these rapid changes are not yet understood.

Meanwhile, each new generation in developed countries comes into the world with fewer of these native populations. "They're actually missing some component of their microbiota that they've evolved to have," Foxman says.

Previously, previously.

Tags: doomed, parts, poop
Current Music: Hanzel und Gretyl -- Mutant Starseed Creation

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/friday_squid_bl_213.html

Happy Squidmas, everybody.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/friday_squid_bl_212.html

A painting.

Exercise 4-13. Write a function reverse(s) which reverses the string s by turning the mind inside out, converting madness into reality and opening the door to allow the Old Ones to creep forth once more from their sunken crypt beyond time.

Tags: computers, tentacles
Current Music: The Asteroids Galaxy Tour -- The Golden Age

http://xkcd.com/680/

Here's hoping all my friends and readers have a merry Christmas.

And you other people too.

Current Mood: happy

Etch-a-Sketch doesn't involve much hill climbing. GPS-a-Sketch in San Francisco does, however:


Merry Christmas from me and whatever_art to you!

*
In other news: not going anywhere for Christmas. Staying in San Francisco, hosting a 10 person orphan dinner. But then going to the Caribbean on a 7 night cruise over New Year's with parents, Sierra, my brother Cole and his girlfriend. Should be fun. :)

Tags: bike, life, vacation
Current Location: San Francisco, CA

Tags: mpegs, robots
Current Music: Public Enemy -- Terminator X Speaks With His Hands

Man, I am not feeling this game at all. 30 minutes in and I'm debating on just shelving it. Levels are too small and claustrophobic (I seriously thing the reworked PS2 version of Deus Ex had larger level chunks), the load times still suck 6+ years after release, and the interface is just shit. Managing your inventory/mods/whatever is a total unintuitive mess.

The more I think of it, the less I want to play. What a colossal disappointment of a game compared to the first one and it comes as no surprise that Harvey Smith, after botching this project, has had trouble getting back into the mix. I mean, between blowing this, running Area 51 into the ground and then shittalking his employer.

I really hope Deus Ex 3 doesn't suck.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/intercepting_pr.html

Sometimes mediocre encryption is better than strong encryption, and sometimes no encryption is better still.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that Iraqi, and possibly also Afghan, militants are using commercial software to eavesdrop on U.S. Predators, other unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, and even piloted planes. The systems weren't "hacked" -- the insurgents can’t control them -- but because the downlink is unencrypted, they can watch the same video stream as the coalition troops on the ground.

The naive reaction is to ridicule the military. Encryption is so easy that HDTVs do it -- just a software routine and you're done -- and the Pentagon has known about this flaw since Bosnia in the 1990s. But encrypting the data is the easiest part; key management is the hard part. Each UAV needs to share a key with the ground station. These keys have to be produced, guarded, transported, used and then destroyed. And the equipment, both the Predators and the ground terminals, needs to be classified and controlled, and all the users need security clearance.

The command and control channel is, and always has been, encrypted -- because that's both more important and easier to manage. UAVs are flown by airmen sitting at comfortable desks on U.S. military bases, where key management is simpler. But the video feed is different. It needs to be available to all sorts of people, of varying nationalities and security clearances, on a variety of field terminals, in a variety of geographical areas, in all sorts of conditions -- with everything constantly changing. Key management in this environment would be a nightmare.

Additionally, how valuable is this video downlink is to the enemy? The primary fear seems to be that the militants watch the video, notice their compound being surveilled and flee before the missiles hit. Or notice a bunch of Marines walking through a recognizable area and attack them. This might make a great movie scene, but it's not very realistic. Without context, and just by peeking at random video streams, the risk caused by eavesdropping is low.

Contrast this with the additional risks if you encrypt: A soldier in the field doesn't have access to the real-time video because of a key management failure; a UAV can't be quickly deployed to a new area because the keys aren't in place; we can't share the video information with our allies because we can't give them the keys; most soldiers can't use this technology because they don't have the right clearances. Given this risk analysis, not encrypting the video is almost certainly the right decision.

There is another option, though. During the Cold War, the NSA's primary adversary was Soviet intelligence, and it developed its crypto solutions accordingly. Even though that level of security makes no sense in Bosnia, and certainly not in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is what the NSA had to offer. If you encrypt, they said, you have to do it "right."

The problem is, the world has changed. Today's insurgent adversaries don't have KGB-level intelligence gathering or cryptanalytic capabilities. At the same time, computer and network data gathering has become much cheaper and easier, so they have technical capabilities the Soviets could only dream of. Defending against these sorts of adversaries doesn't require military-grade encryption only where it counts; it requires commercial-grade encryption everywhere possible.

This sort of solution would require the NSA to develop a whole new level of lightweight commercial-grade security systems for military applications — not just office-data "Sensitive but Unclassified" or "For Official Use Only" classifications. It would require the NSA to allow keys to be handed to uncleared UAV operators, and perhaps read over insecure phone lines and stored in people's back pockets. It would require the sort of ad hoc key management systems you find in internet protocols, or in DRM systems. It wouldn't be anywhere near perfect, but it would be more commensurate with the actual threats.

And it would help defend against a completely different threat facing the Pentagon: The PR threat. Regardless of whether the people responsible made the right security decision when they rushed the Predator into production, or when they convinced themselves that local adversaries wouldn't know how to exploit it, or when they forgot to update their Bosnia-era threat analysis to account for advances in technology, the story is now being played out in the press. The Pentagon is getting beaten up because it's not protecting against the threat — because it's easy to make a sound bite where the threat sounds really dire. And now it has to defend against the perceived threat to the troops, regardless of whether the defense actually protects the troops or not. Reminds me of the TSA, actually.

So the military is now committed to encrypting the video ... eventually. The next generation Predators, called Reapers -- Who names this stuff? Second-grade boys? -- will have the same weakness. Maybe we’ll have encrypted video by 2010, or 2014, but I don't think that's even remotely possible unless the NSA relaxes its key management and classification requirements and embraces a lightweight, less secure encryption solution for these sorts of situations. The real failure here is the failure of the Cold War security model to deal with today's threats.

This essay originally appeared on Wired.com.

EDITED TO ADD (12/24): Good article from The New Yorker on the uses -- and politics -- of these UAVs.

Slumming on lolfbmoments.com:

• "Ladies and Gentlemen... my sister is a whore."
• "Werewolf."
• "Thundercats."
• "Sunglasses."

Tags: perversions, pranks, www
Current Music: The Coathangers -- Dont Touch My Shit

http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/portable-audio-video/cd04/?cpg=wnrdf

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/japanfan/ce9c/?cpg=wnrdf

Holiday debuggery

We know there were a few kinks with the holiday promotion. We've been working very hard to get them ironed out. If you have a paid/permanent account, keep on sending those coupons. Here's an update:

• If you were unable to send out multiple coupons at a time, please perform a hard refresh, and you should be good to go.
• If you redeemed a coupon to upgrade your account and the balance at checkout was $0 instead of $9.95 or $15, this means your upgrade did not go through (nor were you charged). We've straightened this out, so you can now apply your holiday coupon toward the purchase of an annual paid account.
• If you tried to redeem a holiday coupon and had trouble using a gift certificate to cover the balance of an annual paid account, we identified the root problem. If this happened to you, you can now use your holiday coupon together with your gift certificate.
• If the number of holiday coupons you have available suddenly goes up (instead of down), this might be due to recipients declining the coupons, at which point your pool of available coupons will be replenished and, therefore, increase.
• If you need assistance with holiday coupons or pretty much anything else (well, LiveJournal related), please open a support request and we'll be more than happy to help!

Tweaks

• There were some initial glitches displaying results on My Guests, but we've worked them out. We hope you'll check out who's been checking you out!
• Some of you reported formatting issues using the Rich Text Editor (i.e., line breaks were being removed incorrectly). We've implemented a fix! Thanks so much for your patience.

Give a little extra!

We're pleased to report that we've already sold over 100 virtual red ribbons in honor of National AIDS Awareness month. Remember, for each charitable vgift you purchase for $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to fund the development of an HIV vaccine. Once again, we thank you for your generosity.

Celebrate with holiday vGifts!

Stop by the Virtual Gift Shop and share some holiday magic with your LiveJournal friends.

Photos of the week

We're back with more dazzling pictures from around the world. Congrats to marlenemcc, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our fourth photo contest. We hope you'll click over to LJ_Photophile poll and tell us your picks in pics!

For more fantastic user content, we'll meet you under the cut. ( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for reading. Here's wishing you the very merriest of holidays. We'll see you next year!

Tags: holiday coupons, lj_photophile, ljlimericks, my guests, red ribbon vgift

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/plant_security.html

The essay is about veganism and plant eating, but I found the descriptions of plant security countermeasures interesting:

Plants can’t run away from a threat but they can stand their ground. “They are very good at avoiding getting eaten,” said Linda Walling of the University of California, Riverside. “It’s an unusual situation where insects can overcome those defenses.” At the smallest nip to its leaves, specialized cells on the plant’s surface release chemicals to irritate the predator or sticky goo to entrap it. Genes in the plant’s DNA are activated to wage systemwide chemical warfare, the plant’s version of an immune response. We need terpenes, alkaloids, phenolics — let’s move.

“I’m amazed at how fast some of these things happen,” said Consuelo M. De Moraes of Pennsylvania State University. Dr. De Moraes and her colleagues did labeling experiments to clock a plant’s systemic response time and found that, in less than 20 minutes from the moment the caterpillar had begun feeding on its leaves, the plant had plucked carbon from the air and forged defensive compounds from scratch.

Just because we humans can’t hear them doesn’t mean plants don’t howl. Some of the compounds that plants generate in response to insect mastication — their feedback, you might say — are volatile chemicals that serve as cries for help. Such airborne alarm calls have been shown to attract both large predatory insects like dragon flies, which delight in caterpillar meat, and tiny parasitic insects, which can infect a caterpillar and destroy it from within.

Enemies of the plant’s enemies are not the only ones to tune into the emergency broadcast. “Some of these cues, some of these volatiles that are released when a focal plant is damaged,” said Richard Karban of the University of California, Davis, “cause other plants of the same species, or even of another species, to likewise become more resistant to herbivores.”

There's more in the essay.

http://robin-chyo.com/blog2/?p=465

So for those who don’t already know, I’m currently fulfilling a contract position at Activision’s new studio, Sledgehammer Games. The studio is mostly made up of the core team that made last year’s Dead Space (360, PS3, PC). It’s been a really fun time so far. Everyone seems extremely talented and knowledgeable there. :]

I’ve also spent the past few weeks working on some stuff for Fantasy Flight Games. And finally, I’ve volunteered to create an original piece for the Beautiful/Grim art group/show.

As you all can see, I’ve been pretty tied down. But with the holidays right around the corner, I’m hoping I’ll be able to spend some time working on some new ideas I’ve been thinking about.

Until then, here’s a new one from me. I really took my time with this piece. I’ve been on and off it for a month, I think. I know I could have taken it a lot further, but I’m ready to move on.

http://xkcd.com/679/

Overtime by Charles Stross.

Tags: tentacles
Current Music: A Place to Bury Strangers -- Keep Slipping Away

My god. The Steam and GOG sales going on right now are fucking. Insane.

I'm serious, do not visit either page. Do not do it right this instant. You will buy and you will buy a lot. The deals are flowing like water, baby.

STALKER is $2 on Steam right now. Mirror's Edge is $5. Unreal Collection is like $13. The entire Telltale catalog for $50 (75% off). The Witcher for $13. Indigo Prophecy for $3.

SUICIDE KINGS is out in hardcover (see below) and BUSTED FLUSH has been released in mass market. Meanwhile, I've delivered the additional content -- three new stories -- for the first volume of this storied series, WILD CARDS itself, which Tor will be reissuing later in the year. Since the first volume was historical in nature, telling the story of the wild card from 1946 to 1985, adding some original material to cover some of the "lost years" seemed like a natural.

The three new tales:
-- "Captain Cathode and the Secret Ace," by Michael Cassutt,
-- "Powers," by David D. Levine,
-- "Ghost Girl Takes Manhattan," by Carrie Vaughn.

No publication date yet. You'll know when I do.

As for FORT FREAK, the twenty-first volume in the series that WILD CARDS began, first drafts are all in, I've given the usual editorial note, and the writers are all off revising. This one looks to be a lot of fun. The Class of 2009 is doing some great work, and the old-timers ain't half bad either.

On other fronts, Gardner Dozois and I are very close to delivering our original cross-genre anthology STAR-CROSSED LOVERS, to Pocket Books. We're waiting for some minor revisions from one writer. Once those are in hand, the book will be delivered. Only it's not STAR-CROSSED LOVERS any longer. Pocket's sales force did not like that title, so the anthology has now been rechristened SONGS OF LOVE AND DEATH. Got a great line up of writers for that one, including Diana Gabaldon, Jim Butcher, M.L.N. Hanover, Peter S. Beagle, Marjorie Liu, Jacqueline Carey, Carrie Vaughn, Robin Hobb, Neil Gaiman, and many more.

Everybody's talking about AVATAR, which I haven't seen yet... but I have been going to movies. While the crowds queue up for Cameron, I've been catching up on some of the other films now in release. I enjoyed THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG, and liked INVICTUS as well, but the one that really impressed me was ME AND ORSON WELLES. The guy who plays Welles should get an Oscar nomination for that performance.

As usual, I am way behind on my Xmas shopping.

Where does the time go?

Current Mood: busy

I almost never actually visit the Facebook web site: I follow it through a feed reader (in my case, NetNewsWire) along with all of my other feeds.

Besides the obvious benefits to this, one great side effect is that you never, ever see the output of applications (e.g., quiz results) or the other useless noise like "so-and-so is now friends with someone else you already know". The only drawback I've found is that you also don't see notifications about photos that your friends have uploaded. (You do see links that they post, however: just not Facebook-hosted photos. It's a bizarre omission.)

Anyway, I just had to explain to someone how to accomplish this feat, which made me realize how completely non-obvious Facebook has made this. Finding these feeds is a complete pain in the ass. They've really gone out of their way to hide the URLs you need to use.

So. You have to subscribe to three or four different feeds.

1. Posts: Find the Posts feed by going to http://www.facebook.com/posted.php. On the upper right of the page is a gray box, and at the bottom of that box is a link entitled "My Friends' Links" with the RSS logo next to it. Copy that URL. Subscribe to it in your feed reader. This is the RSS URL for any links and (external) images that your friends post.

2. Notes: Find the Notes feed by going to http://www.facebook.com/notes.php and repeating the above. This is the RSS URL for things that your friends post via the "Notes" app, which is (I guess) the more blog-like way of posting long things to Facebook.

3. Notifications: Find the Notifications feed by going to http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php and repeating the above. This is the RSS URL for things like "so-and-so commented on your status". You might not care to subscribe to this one because you can get all of these kind of notifications in email.

4. Status Updates: This is the RSS URL for the "What are you doing?" Twitter-like part of Facebook. This is the one you probably care about, and it is trickier, because Facebook no longer links to the feed URL! Nice one guys. You have to construct this URL by editing one of the above URLs. E.g., take the "Notes" URL and change the part of the URL that says "friends_notes" to "friends_status". Keep the parts of the URL before and after that, including the magic numbers at the end.

There. Wasn't that SIMPLE?

Previously: How to use Livejournal with a feed reader.

Tags: lazyweb, www
Current Music: The Coathangers -- Bury Me

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/unisex/popculture/a231/?cpg=wnrdf

Today was the official publication day for the latest Wild Cards book, SUICIDE KINGS.

Run, don't walk, to your favorite bookstore and getcha copy now. And hell, while you're there, get copies for all your friends as well. All you Xmas shopping in one swell foop.

Tags: wild cards
Current Mood: chipper

JSMin has a non-free clause in its license: "The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil." The author of this addition clearly thought it was cute, but a license is no place for being cute; precluding evil is a simple violation of clauses five/six of the DFSG.

Allowing people to do things you disagree with is the whole point of free software, not just a minor quibble. See also Mark Pilgrim's great essay: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to explain this to you.

(When it comes to freedom, I side with Debian over the open source people or the GNU nuts. I think something like the third clause of the BSD license combined with a trademark for the book title (if he cared enough) would've been enough to address the issue invariant texts were meant to address in the non-free GFDL.)

Tags: free software

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-edibles/cf26/?cpg=wnrdf

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/jewelry/cf5e/?cpg=wnrdf

http://www.thinkgeek.com/geektoys/games/cebd/?cpg=wnrdf

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/luggage_locator.html

Wow, is this a bad idea:

The Luggage Locator is an innovative product that travellers or anyone can use to locate items. It has been specifically engineered to help people find their luggage quickly and can also be used around the home or office.

A battery operated, two unit system, the Luggage Locator consists of a small transmitter about the size of a key chain and a lightweight receiver that attaches to any luggage handle. With the simple push of a button, the transmitter activates the receiver causing a bright flashing light and loud chirping sound. Locating your luggage after a long trip has never been quicker nor easier.

Anyone care to guess what's most likely to happen if a piece of luggage in an airport starts flashing and chirping? I think it'll be taken out to the tarmac and blown up using remote controlled bazookas.

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2009/12/howard_schmidt_1.html

I head this rumor two days ago, and The New York Times is reporting today.

Reporters are calling me for reactions and opinions, but I just don't know. Schmidt is good, but I don't know if anyone can do well in a job with lots of responsibility but no actual authority. But maybe Obama will imbue the position with authority -- I don't know.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-edibles/CE04/?cpg=wnrdf

http://www.thinkgeek.com/caffeine/wacky-edibles/CE0E/?cpg=wnrdf

Well, that was fun. If only every game was like this...

(Maybe it is, if you're a Colts fan).

These were the Giants I remember. The swarming aggressive D, the sacks, the knockdowns, the hurries, the interceptions, runners tackled at the line of scrimmage. And on offense, long time-consuming drives ending in touchdowns. Eli looked terrific, spreading the ball around. Nicks, Smith, Manningham, and Boss all had big catches, and even Derek Hagan scored a touchdown. The running game was back, especially when Ahmad Bradshaw had the ball. The O line opened gaping holes, and the D line was so relentless that our wafer-thin secondary was never threatened.

Yeah, these were the real G-Men.

I have no idea who those clowns in the Redskins uniforms were.

That fake field goal the Skins tried at the end of the first half had to be one of the most bizarre plays I've ever seen. Watching Steve Young talk about it in the postgame was hilarious.

I do feel sorry for Jim Zorn, whose postgame press conference was... well, obviously, no one ever taught the guy Coachspeak. Poor guy is not long for D.C.

But it was a great win.

Now we need two more like it, coupled with a Cowboys loss.

(Or a Packers loss, maybe... but while I know the G-Men have the tiebreaker over Dallas, no one has ever mentioned who wins a tie between New York and Green Bay).

Next week, the Panthers. Who beat the Vikings yesterday. Let's hope the real G-Men show up.

Tags: nfl
Current Mood: happy

http://www.dnalounge.com/backstage/log/2009/12/21.html

Lots of photos!

Galleries are up of Bootie, Meat's Santa Pig, Hubba Hubba Revue's Chrismanukkah, and Trannyshack's 11th Annual Star Search Competition.

And after the upcoming Death Guild this Friday, you can finally throw that fuzzy red hat in the wash. It's time.

Counting tonight, there are only seven events left before we are forced to close down for most of January... So come get your DNA fix in now!

Remember: if you're planning on coming to Bootie at DNA Lounge on New Year's Eve, order your tickets soon! We are doing pre-sales only this year, and the price goes up from $50 to $60 on Monday (or as soon as this batch of $50 tickets sells out).

DNA Lounge update, wherein the holiday cheer continues apace.

Tags: dnalounge
Current Music: Ab Ovo -- Egregore

Tags: comics, movies, mpegs

http://www.thinkgeek.com/computing/usb-gadgets/c585/?cpg=wnrdf