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DeathscytheX

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Posts posted by DeathscytheX

  1. Posted · Report reply

    http://kotaku.com/5567578/the-president-may-get-the-authority-to-kick-us-all-offline

    As weird and scary as it sounds, there may be a time when you'll be able to blame your server going down on the current U.S. President instead of your internet provider.

    A new U.S. Senate bill known as the "Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset" Act, would enable the president to access a "kill-switch" that would essentially allow him/her to pull the plug on portions of the internet in a cyber security emergency. According to Senator Susan Collins (R-ME), "…we cannot afford to wait for a cyber 9/11 before our government realizes the importance of protecting our cyber resources."

    What portions of the internet would this affect? That's up to Homeland Security, according to a report on the proposed bill from CNET. Essentially, any company that "relies on the internet, the telephone system, or any other component of the U.S. information infrastructure" could be required to operate under the command of the National Center for Cybersecurity and Communications (NCCC), a new division of Homeland Security that would be put into operation if the bill passes. These companies would be required to keep their security measures up to NCCC standards. If they chose not to abide by the emergency shut down procedures put in place, they would be subject to a fine.

    For online gamers, this may seem to be an attack on our recreational time. In many cases, we are paying for the online services we utilize, such as Xbox Live or subscription games. In turn, we rely on them to run ‘round the clock (with the exception of regularly scheduled maintenance periods). If these networks were to all of a sudden go down for a lengthy period of time, would we get our money back? If we were at a pivotal point in our game, would our items and status at the time of the shut down be returned upon the server's revival?

    It would be a nuisance more than anything else, especially seeing as many online games cannot be played offline (such as WoW, EVE, Guild Wars and EverQuest ). A compromise mentioned in the bill states that companies would be reimbursed for money lost while their networks were forced to go offline. However, in the midst of whatever crisis has caused the internet be shut down, the game networks themselves may lose subscribers, which would affect business in the long term.

    Roping online game networks into this group of internet outlets that could be involved in a security breach if hacked may seem unfair, seeing as online gaming networks really don't leave their users room to store potentially valuable data, aside from perhaps credit card information (unless you count an item that drops .001% of the time that you desperately need to complete your gear set). Sure, they're social networking outlets as well. I suppose you could see a group of orcs or gnomes hanging out and argue that they could be real-life terrorists planning an attack, but it's unlikely that your speculation could be proven true. Gaming networks are not where the threat of national security compromise lies. People log on to them to play a game-to socialize, and nothing more.

    The idea of disconnecting all of our nation's servers seems like a knee-jerk reaction, and perhaps too much power for one person to hold. A better idea might be to beef up security on the sites that truly do have sensitive information, allowing the plug to be pulled on those sites in the event of a "cyber emergency."

    My only questions are what exactly could be considered a "cyber emergency" and what is the likelihood that such an event will actually occur?

  2. Posted · Report reply

    http://gizmodo.com/5565816/bp-purchases-32-of-kevin-costners-oil+water-separation-machines

    Laugh you may have when you heard that Kevin Costner was stepping into BP's oil spill disaster with a potential solution, but BP has now snapped up 32 of the centrifuge machines to help separate the oil from the water.

    The technology was created by Costner's brother, with the actor pumping in $20m over 15 years. While 40,000 barrels worth of oil is leaking into the gulf of Mexico each day, the V20 machine can clean up 200 gallons of water a minute.

    Horrendous the spill disaster may be, but it's terrific well-known personalities such as Costner and James Cameron are leaping forward with possible solutions to clean up the gulf. [ABC via The Guardian]

    Video from last month which shows off Ocean Therapy Solutions' technology:

    Jx5XgUYDQ3k

    Sledgstone reacted to this

  3. Posted · Report reply

    I am a christian. I believe in the Christ savior. I do not agree with church doctrine. I don't consider myself any denomination.

    If people look down on my for my beliefs, they can go jump off a building. I really don't care. People can believe in whatever they choose to. If you want to believe in a higher being, or that we came from acid rain dripping off a rock... that's up to the individual. Hopefully they take the time to learn about it, that's really all that matters.

  6. Posted · Report reply

    v-FkreUSyko



    I've seen a lot of comments complaining about how this looks more like a God of War clone than a traditional Castlevania. My thoughts are: Get over it.

    The past couple of Castlevania titles were pretty stale... and in my opinion, this genre was made by Castlevania not GoW. GoW just innovated it into something more (Becoming one of the most enjoyable series to play out there). Using the same type of flowing combat engine is a plus. There just isnt a good reason to stick with a limited outdated one. It will improve the series... and Hell, Kojima is at the helm! This is going to have awesome game play and a fantastic story. I'm looking forward to it. The days of running through a bunch of rooms that look the same are over.

  13. Posted · Report reply

    The first game was your typical 6-7 hour adventure game. I guess that's pretty short, PS1 game short probably. It wasn't really loaded with cut scenes to drag it out like most games these days. Of course you had to option to replay it with all your powers. The customizable lightsabers and wardrobe were a big plus too. For it being the first game of its type, it was pretty impressive... They have the game play down. Its the best engine (Or engines i should say since the game runs off 3 separate game engines at the same time!) for a star wars game yet. I dont know If i could go back and play Jedi Outcast. Now if they improve on it, it will make for a truely amazing game.

    I would like a 10-15 hour experience this time around.

  14. Posted · Report reply

    No telling.... Just based on the game Starkiller is the most powerful sith/jedi during this time or maybe ever... You can sling Tie Fighters around like baseballs, crush AT-ST's like a wad of paper, and pull Star Destroyers down from the sky.

    Really the story was decent at best for the first one... The game was just more fun to play than any other aspect of it.

  16. Posted · Report reply

    Saw this last night and I thought it was great. Fan of the original or not, if you like back to back to back ridiculous action sequences, this is a must see. Its over the top 80s action at its finest. The acting was pleastly good as well. Don't go into it thinking its going to be an updated realistic feature, because its not. The story is modernized, but there is still more shooting than bullets actually hitting people, tons of explosions, and unrealistic stunts.... Oh and very little use of CG...

    A-TEAM is just fun to watch.

  19. Posted · Report reply

    http://gizmodo.com/5561028/hurricane-disasters-to-be-avoided-with-bill-gates-ocean-pumps

    Video contained in the link.

    500x_oceanpump.jpg

    Hurricane Disasters To Be Avoided With Bill Gates' Ocean PumpsBill Gates, since leaving the helm of Microsoft, has been busy plowing his money into well-deserved environmental issues such as the artificial clouds project, and ocean pumps which could (almost) halt hurricanes in their tracks.

    While Gates didn't come up with the idea (instead, it was Stanford University's Ken Caldeira), the investment is sure to make a huge difference to the project, which could have major benefits to the whole world—not just the hurricane-stricken coastal areas of the US.

    The pumps work by cooling the surface temperature of the ocean down, which makes hurricanes less volatile. Rather that stopping hurricanes completely, Caldeira's work should see hurricanes fizzle out sooner, and be less serious than previous titans of Mother Nature's.

  22. Posted · Report reply

    I feel you there. I'm Mayan, Spaniard, English, German, Irish, Scottish, Italian, Apache. (X'D my own ancestors were killing each other!) I cant stand "Well this happened in the past blah blah, you should be ashamed of yourselves, my ancestry is no where as bad as yours!" If that's the case, we should all hate ourselves, because the cro-magnons killed off the neanderthal... so I guess we're all just the biggest evil scum of the earth eh?

    All we can do is live and learn... We do bad shit, every culture, every nation, every individual. No one is more "evil" than the other.

  23. Posted · Report reply

    Some of those empires you have mentioned accepted accumulation as long as they submitted.

    Koreans defended against Mongol invasions 7 times until they gave up and surrendered.

    Romans granted citizens to those who were willing to pay taxes.

    Alexander respected the culture of others that he conquered.

    Don't know much of Ottoman empire except Jews keep brining up Armenian massacre.

    Hitler and Stalin, both Whites, wanted to wipe out everything that they didn't want.

    But none of them were able to conquer the entire continent and annihilate and isolate the population of Native Americans.

    :nah: That doesn't change the fact that more people were killed under them than the evil whites.

    Yes I know Hitler and Stalin were white, I was simply stating that we know them best because of how recently it happened and how well our communications have advanced.

  24. Posted · Report reply

    The Native Americans are still in existence today. No one got "wiped out" per say. A LOT of them were killed, and the rest were rounded up like sub-humans and placed on reservations as we all know. Trail of Tears is a sad story indeed.

    Genghis Khan conquered the biggest chunk of the world than anyone before and after. I guarantee more were killed under his name than the "whites".

    Alexander the Great wiped out more people than the "whites".

    Manifest Destiny was one of the biggest slaughters and forced exodus of native people in history. But not unprecedented... absolutely not. The Roman, Persian, Babylonian, Mongol, Egyptian, and Ottoman empire were well before it. It was either get out, or serve your new masters. A lot of them weren't "white".

    If they had the same type of uncontrolled media back during the empires I listed off, Hitler and Stalin would be as important as the last page in the news paper compared to some of the ancient leaders. We just know them best because of the advancement of global communication technology, and they are the most recent.

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