World of Warcraft : did a 5 man Scholomance run with 3 rogues (all combat spec), 1 paladin (holy spec), and myself (protection spec warrior). Maybe I'm just amused because all 3 rogues were, in fact, girls. Or that, anyone who has ever played this game would know this group setup is illogical and funny. =p
More fun probably because we've all known each other for a long time, and have full confidence in each others skills - we're all near the best that our classes can be, skill and equipment wise, and also that we're doing Scholomance not for gear but for fun. (Scholo drops ceased to have any relevance to us about 5 months ago).
Eh I know what's fun about it, it's watching 3 combat specced rogues with epic gear burn down mobs and bosses in mere seconds.
Thursday
Sunday
Dark Reading - Host security - Social Engineering, the USB Way - Security
Social Engineering and computer security
An interesting take on an innovative way to compromise a secure network from the inside. Basically, plant infected USB thumbdrives around the facility you want to compromis. Wait for employees to discover these "lost" thumbdrives. Rely on them to plug them into their computer out of curiosity, infecting their computers with a trojan that collects and emails out password data.
Written by VA and founder of a network security company.
Snippet from comments
- Yes, disabling autorun helps mitigate some risk. However, users are probably going click on just about anything with an intriguing file name so this is not a complete strategy.
- USB and firewire specifications are fundamentally flawed, allowing direct memory access which enables execution of code without user action or autorun.
An interesting take on an innovative way to compromise a secure network from the inside. Basically, plant infected USB thumbdrives around the facility you want to compromis. Wait for employees to discover these "lost" thumbdrives. Rely on them to plug them into their computer out of curiosity, infecting their computers with a trojan that collects and emails out password data.
Written by VA and founder of a network security company.
Snippet from comments
- Yes, disabling autorun helps mitigate some risk. However, users are probably going click on just about anything with an intriguing file name so this is not a complete strategy.
- USB and firewire specifications are fundamentally flawed, allowing direct memory access which enables execution of code without user action or autorun.
Tuesday
this is what happens
in a country with the "gold standard" of gun control law.
-~-
In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted £5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.
-~-
I did read about the case as it happened, back in 1999. It was quite an issue, I recall. I did not know the outcome of the case, but now I do.
Am I the only one who sees a gross miscarriage of justice? How can the citizens of that country (UK) stand by and allow such a thing to happen?
Why aren't there mass protests to set him free? Can anyone who lived in the UK in 1999 help answer that question?
Possessing the means of self protection is dangerous, but completely giving up the right to do so and leaving it in the hands of the police isn't much better or smarter. The police aren't there 24 hours a day to hold your hand, and in the end, you can only rely on yourself. Think about it, it's not like the police are going to be there when you get robbed - the robber will just bide his time and wait for another day.
-~-
In 1999 Tony Martin, a 55-year-old Norfolk farmer living alone in a shabby farmhouse, awakened to the sound of breaking glass as two burglars, both with long criminal records, burst into his home. He had been robbed six times before, and his village, like 70 percent of rural English communities, had no police presence. He sneaked downstairs with a shotgun and shot at the intruders. Martin received life in prison for killing one burglar, 10 years for wounding the second, and a year for having an unregistered shotgun. The wounded burglar, having served 18 months of a three-year sentence, is now free and has been granted £5,000 of legal assistance to sue Martin.
-~-
I did read about the case as it happened, back in 1999. It was quite an issue, I recall. I did not know the outcome of the case, but now I do.
Am I the only one who sees a gross miscarriage of justice? How can the citizens of that country (UK) stand by and allow such a thing to happen?
Why aren't there mass protests to set him free? Can anyone who lived in the UK in 1999 help answer that question?
Possessing the means of self protection is dangerous, but completely giving up the right to do so and leaving it in the hands of the police isn't much better or smarter. The police aren't there 24 hours a day to hold your hand, and in the end, you can only rely on yourself. Think about it, it's not like the police are going to be there when you get robbed - the robber will just bide his time and wait for another day.
Sunday
Gun Control
"A new study suggests the use of handguns in crime rose by 40% in the two years after the weapons were banned."
BBC News, 2001
Some interesting debate on this subject, triggered by a comment I saw posted online. Basically the view advocating gun ownership goes as such.
Crime, is an inherently risky profession. Take for example mugging (which I have been a victim of). If on average 5% of citizens carry a gun and are willing to use deadly force in self defense, statistically a mugger will only go for a few months before either being killed or becoming a murderer and hunted by the state. Plainly put, mugging and violent crime does not pay when your victims can fight back.
Disarming the population by not allowing them to own guns, turns mugging from a risky, dangerous act into harvesting.
-~-
A common situation : it's a dark, lonely footpath. You suddenly notice several people coming along from the other direction. You have 3 seconds before they reach you. Automatically you step far off the pathway to give yourself a larger clearance : to your dismay, they leave the path as well and walk briskly towards you.
You freeze. Now for sure you know they have hostile intentions. In one second, they will be close enough that you cannot use your gun.
If you draw your gun and shout a warning for them not to come nearer, the hesitation before shooting would be enough for them to easily overpower and disarm you, being outnumbered, even if one of their number is shot.
If you draw the gun and instantly fire on them, well... that would be kind of difficult when it turns out they were going to ask for directions.
If you choose not to fire, they overpower you at close range. They steal everything, find a gun, maybe kill you with it.
-~-
Or even in what I experienced : 4 vs 1, cornered in on all sides with no way to escape. They basically overpowered me, restrained me and took a few swings at me then pushed me to the ground, took what they wanted, and ran. No visible weapons I noticed, except wooden club. Maybe they had weapons in case I decided to resist.
I doubt shooting them in the back as they ran away would have been very justifiable, much as I would have liked to. Shooting before they overpowered me wouldn't have been justifiable, either. There is absolutely no way having a weapon would have helped me.
-~-
But maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is, those criminals would not be alive to rob other people. Maybe their deaths would have deterred every other criminal friend they had from commiting crime, if they knew that more and more, civillians are prepared to retaliate, even if they go to jail themselves.
It's surprisingly difficult to conclusively say which situation is better. On one hand we could have a society where there are civillians armed and prepared to defend themselves, so the assumption is that 90% of criminals are deterred from commiting crime in the first place. On the other hand we could have a completely disarmed society where mugging becomes "harvesting" - no one gets hurt, the criminals just pick up the wallets and everyone goes their seperate ways.
BBC News, 2001
Some interesting debate on this subject, triggered by a comment I saw posted online. Basically the view advocating gun ownership goes as such.
Crime, is an inherently risky profession. Take for example mugging (which I have been a victim of). If on average 5% of citizens carry a gun and are willing to use deadly force in self defense, statistically a mugger will only go for a few months before either being killed or becoming a murderer and hunted by the state. Plainly put, mugging and violent crime does not pay when your victims can fight back.
Disarming the population by not allowing them to own guns, turns mugging from a risky, dangerous act into harvesting.
-~-
A common situation : it's a dark, lonely footpath. You suddenly notice several people coming along from the other direction. You have 3 seconds before they reach you. Automatically you step far off the pathway to give yourself a larger clearance : to your dismay, they leave the path as well and walk briskly towards you.
You freeze. Now for sure you know they have hostile intentions. In one second, they will be close enough that you cannot use your gun.
If you draw your gun and shout a warning for them not to come nearer, the hesitation before shooting would be enough for them to easily overpower and disarm you, being outnumbered, even if one of their number is shot.
If you draw the gun and instantly fire on them, well... that would be kind of difficult when it turns out they were going to ask for directions.
If you choose not to fire, they overpower you at close range. They steal everything, find a gun, maybe kill you with it.
-~-
Or even in what I experienced : 4 vs 1, cornered in on all sides with no way to escape. They basically overpowered me, restrained me and took a few swings at me then pushed me to the ground, took what they wanted, and ran. No visible weapons I noticed, except wooden club. Maybe they had weapons in case I decided to resist.
I doubt shooting them in the back as they ran away would have been very justifiable, much as I would have liked to. Shooting before they overpowered me wouldn't have been justifiable, either. There is absolutely no way having a weapon would have helped me.
-~-
But maybe that's not the point. Maybe the point is, those criminals would not be alive to rob other people. Maybe their deaths would have deterred every other criminal friend they had from commiting crime, if they knew that more and more, civillians are prepared to retaliate, even if they go to jail themselves.
It's surprisingly difficult to conclusively say which situation is better. On one hand we could have a society where there are civillians armed and prepared to defend themselves, so the assumption is that 90% of criminals are deterred from commiting crime in the first place. On the other hand we could have a completely disarmed society where mugging becomes "harvesting" - no one gets hurt, the criminals just pick up the wallets and everyone goes their seperate ways.
Friday
Sex Advice From . . . Role-Players
Nerve.com - Sex Advice From . . . Role-Players by John Constantine
Linked off an RP forum, pretty funny + interesting article. And well, it's Nerve =p
(so yeah, geeky cosplyers do get some, hehe)
Excerpt
What characters and costumes should never be brought into sex?
Anything with a lot of armor or spikes.
Well duh!
How do two people who are friends make the jump to sleeping together?
That's complicated. I really feel that there's a window in the friendship when that's possible. If you know someone for, say, more than a year, you kind of missed that gap. Around the three-month mark, try to move things in that direction. If it hasn't worked around nine months, you have to ease off.
Hmm. Sounds about right =p
Linked off an RP forum, pretty funny + interesting article. And well, it's Nerve =p
(so yeah, geeky cosplyers do get some, hehe)
Excerpt
What characters and costumes should never be brought into sex?
Anything with a lot of armor or spikes.
Well duh!
How do two people who are friends make the jump to sleeping together?
That's complicated. I really feel that there's a window in the friendship when that's possible. If you know someone for, say, more than a year, you kind of missed that gap. Around the three-month mark, try to move things in that direction. If it hasn't worked around nine months, you have to ease off.
Hmm. Sounds about right =p
Thursday
More on Left Behind
One of the interesting liberal christian viewpoint posts by Fred Clark on the Left Behind series. Good take on things, and he's got a lot more on the index page.
Excerpt
-~-
"What must I do to be saved?" the young ruler asked Jesus.
"Sell all you have and give it to the poor, then come, follow me," Jesus replied.
L&J's reply is quite different. They're not alone in this -- I've heard thousands of evangelistic sermons, but I've never heard an evangelist answer the young man's question the way Jesus did. Evangelists don't like Jesus' answer because they're intent on asking the same question the young man asked, and the whole point of Jesus' answer is that it's the wrong question. If your concern is with yourself and securing salvation for yourself, you're going to ask the wrong questions.
-~-
*edit* and a from cute quote going This unrecognizable, heterodox puree includes chunks of John's apocalypse, mixed together willy-nilly with the stranger bits of Daniel, Ezekiel and the minor prophets and slices of St. Paul's meditations on death and Christ's warnings of judgment. It also includes lots of other things, like numerology, an aversion to historical context and whole passages apparently taken from the AD&D Monster Manual.
Excerpt
-~-
"What must I do to be saved?" the young ruler asked Jesus.
"Sell all you have and give it to the poor, then come, follow me," Jesus replied.
L&J's reply is quite different. They're not alone in this -- I've heard thousands of evangelistic sermons, but I've never heard an evangelist answer the young man's question the way Jesus did. Evangelists don't like Jesus' answer because they're intent on asking the same question the young man asked, and the whole point of Jesus' answer is that it's the wrong question. If your concern is with yourself and securing salvation for yourself, you're going to ask the wrong questions.
-~-
*edit* and a from cute quote going This unrecognizable, heterodox puree includes chunks of John's apocalypse, mixed together willy-nilly with the stranger bits of Daniel, Ezekiel and the minor prophets and slices of St. Paul's meditations on death and Christ's warnings of judgment. It also includes lots of other things, like numerology, an aversion to historical context and whole passages apparently taken from the AD&D Monster Manual.
Left Behind: Eternal Forces
GameSpy: Left Behind: Eternal Forces Preview
It was a post on Mefi which got me started on this, but it did look interesting. The linked article was sensationalist of course. "You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state"
Well forget the religious angle on it, the gameplay mechanic is a fresh idea and the plotline intriguing enough. I only wish I had thought of it first. =p
It was a post on Mefi which got me started on this, but it did look interesting. The linked article was sensationalist of course. "You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state"
Well forget the religious angle on it, the gameplay mechanic is a fresh idea and the plotline intriguing enough. I only wish I had thought of it first. =p
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)