Another good one: Trauma Center. (Think ER done as an anime.) The controller allows you to act as a surgeon. I'm not a gamer anymore, but I spent 20 pulse-pounding minutes playing a demo of it (I think it was at a Best Buy, but I'm not sure).
Maybe if I didn't have so much goddamn real work to do...
Jody, thanks for the tip. Unfortunately what I had to do was disable the MAC address filtering and open the network wide open. Then it was able to get an IP address from my router. Once the router dished that out, the router immediately told me the new MAC ID that had signed in to the system. So I added it to the filters, reactivated everything, and now it's working like a champ.
I can't believe I was just browsing the web on my game console. The future is now!
It's not easy to type on but it works. Does anyone know if you can plug a USB keyboard into it?
Once we have that, it'll be like everything old is new again.
The earliest personal computers were things you attached to a television. But the resolution wasn't good enough so eventually people stopped doing that and buying monitors.
Now we're connecting game units to TVs--which we've been doing for years--and contemplating adding a keyboard. And they've got disk drives and storage and even internet access. Once they get a keyboard, they're a personal computer again. Attached to a TV, just like the old days.
Microsoft and Intel have probably noticed all this. The Wintel platform dominance is soon to be deeply challenged in the home market.
Since MAC address filtering is basically worthless anyway (any snooper can just sniff your traffic and pretend to be a device that has permission), you can just leave it off.
MAC filtering is more like holding your front door shut with a piece of Scotch tape. "Determined enough" basically means "can you figure out which button to click in the WiFi cracking app?"
Ditto on the MAC filtering being mostly useless for home users. Not worth the time it takes to do it. If no one else is going to try to log onto your network anyway, then it serves no purpose; if they are, it's not likely to stop them.
A standing problem is that if you leave your connection unsecured, then anyone in your local neighborhood, even well-intentioned people, might leech off your internet connection. That happens a lot. If you lock down the allowed MAC addresses on your network, and also lock down the number of IP addresses your router will dish out, you lock down such casual (even inadvertant) bandwidth-leeching.
That's all you're doing.
It's also a secondary (tertiary) level of protection against hackers, if your goal is to make their lives as difficult as possible.
It is no more pointless than locking your car doors. Which, as someone who was a repo man at one time in his career, I can tell you is all but a joke: I have the tools and experience to break into most cars in less than a minute if I want to. They're in the trunk of my car. I've helped more than one friend who locked her keys in her car, in fact--with most models, American models especially, I can get in within a minute or two without causing any serious destruction.
And if I'm a car thief, I can get in even faster--less than 5 seconds, actually. I just break your window.
So please, stop locking your car doors. It serves no purpose at all, right? (Wrong. It discourages the casual thief and/or idiot.)
Post a little "no solicitors" sign on your front door. Will it stop the determined salesman? Will it stop the girl scout selling cookies who just doesn't know what it means? No. Will it stop most? Yep.
Lock your front door. Will it stop, or even slow down, the professional thief? Nope. Will it stop the casual thief or random lunatic? Yep.
If it's the middle of a hot summer, do you bother rolling your car windows up when you park in a shopping mall? Why? Do you honestly think your windows being up will stop a determined thief or vandal?
1.22.2007 8:51pm
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
Maybe if I didn't have so much goddamn real work to do...
Wii!!
I can't believe I was just browsing the web on my game console. The future is now!
It's not easy to type on but it works. Does anyone know if you can plug a USB keyboard into it?
The earliest personal computers were things you attached to a television. But the resolution wasn't good enough so eventually people stopped doing that and buying monitors.
Now we're connecting game units to TVs--which we've been doing for years--and contemplating adding a keyboard. And they've got disk drives and storage and even internet access. Once they get a keyboard, they're a personal computer again. Attached to a TV, just like the old days.
Microsoft and Intel have probably noticed all this. The Wintel platform dominance is soon to be deeply challenged in the home market.
It's not there for hacker protection.
A standing problem is that if you leave your connection unsecured, then anyone in your local neighborhood, even well-intentioned people, might leech off your internet connection. That happens a lot. If you lock down the allowed MAC addresses on your network, and also lock down the number of IP addresses your router will dish out, you lock down such casual (even inadvertant) bandwidth-leeching.
That's all you're doing.
It's also a secondary (tertiary) level of protection against hackers, if your goal is to make their lives as difficult as possible.
It is no more pointless than locking your car doors. Which, as someone who was a repo man at one time in his career, I can tell you is all but a joke: I have the tools and experience to break into most cars in less than a minute if I want to. They're in the trunk of my car. I've helped more than one friend who locked her keys in her car, in fact--with most models, American models especially, I can get in within a minute or two without causing any serious destruction.
And if I'm a car thief, I can get in even faster--less than 5 seconds, actually. I just break your window.
So please, stop locking your car doors. It serves no purpose at all, right? (Wrong. It discourages the casual thief and/or idiot.)
Post a little "no solicitors" sign on your front door. Will it stop the determined salesman? Will it stop the girl scout selling cookies who just doesn't know what it means? No. Will it stop most? Yep.
Lock your front door. Will it stop, or even slow down, the professional thief? Nope. Will it stop the casual thief or random lunatic? Yep.
If it's the middle of a hot summer, do you bother rolling your car windows up when you park in a shopping mall? Why? Do you honestly think your windows being up will stop a determined thief or vandal?
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.