Bay 12 Games Forum

Oh hey. http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/04/report-google-to-end-forced-g-integration-drastically-cut-division-resources/
No more of the awful forced G+ integration!

So while the cable guy came and set up our cable/internet, and connected my computer, he didn't tell me the password to the internet. No PS3 connection for me.

Dunno whether they intentionally locked it down or not (probably not, but you never know with asshat cable companies these days). However, you should be able to get the info you need from the router. Typically the router config stuff can be found at a default location of 192.168.1.1, 192.168.0.1, 192.168.1.0 or 192.168.0.0. Just put those in your web browser til a username/password request pops up (the rest should just fail to connect to anything). Usually, default user/pass is a username of "admin" and a default password of "admin"; though this may vary by manufacturer. If it doesn't work, look up the default for your particular router; should be easy to find online.

Now I'm wondering if there ever was an intercontinental trebuchet.

Given how common seiges on Constantinople were, I'm actually inclined to think it could have existed.

Started using space stations for something useful for like the first time ever.
It's getting rather crowded on Spacelab-1. It's in a nice, low orbit over Minmus, and serves as a supply, science warehouse, and cleaning station for my Minmus science landers. In the image are also the (obsolete) DSS-1 Deep Space Science lander, its replacement, the DSS-2 Deep Space Science lander, and the DSCT-1 Deep Space Crew Transport. I think it's actually my first space station to save IRL time on getting science.

Quote from: Knit tie on April 19, 2014, 02:52:17 pm

5 bucks is not worth the hassle.

Consensus disagrees with you so far.

Anyway, it looks like my Internet privacy is pretty good. Those who utilized fairly elaborate methods were unable to get anything beyond my name, or part of my name. I've been deleting every profile anyone finds containing Real Life information, so it should only get harder. Excellent way to boost privacy of data.

Pfft, deleting them. You can't delete things on the internet, they're there forever and ever and ever.
That twitter account that vanished? Google remembers it.
See that little down arrow next to search results? Just click that, click 'cached' and you now have the contents for most dead links.

Anyway, country is pretty obvious, as that's plastered all over those accounts, as well as implied by both requesting a 'state' in the OP and your Bay12 activity: http://www.bay12forums.com/smf/index.php?action=profile;area=statistics;u=26126
And really, it's that sort of aggregate data you should be more worried about. It gives a rough estimate of longitude, but also a look at your daily routine. Which you may find even more concerning than any of the requested stuff. For example, you will probably be asleep between 3AM and 8AM central time. You're typically free in the evenings, and busy doing something in the mornings and early afternoon. Based on typical posting style, board demographics, and perhaps a vague memory of it having been stated, that period of time is probably spent at school. Based on those data points, I would narrow down the location to Pacific time zone.

Now that's all just based on the immediately obvious chart; there's also a full record of posts. If the chart wasn't there, or if you wanted a more precise look at the data, you would write some scripts to grab the posts, put them into a simple database which sorts them by time of day, day of the week, ect. Preferably with some nice graphical UI elements for building a virtual crime-wall or some such. That's not my field of expertise, but the fact that it is obvious even to a graphics programmer like myself means it is so obvious that anyone serious about it would do so.

And there are probably all sorts of open-source programs to do just that. A simple search for 'auto-doxing software' yields this as the first result: http://sourceforge.net/projects/doxingassistant/ Didn't download it, as that sort of thing sounds as likely as not to have viruses attached, but it likely is the sort of thing 4chan would use, as you will note one of the 'recommended projects' links is to LOIC.

The thing is, any given post or snippet of info probably won't lead to your person. But in aggregate, trends are revealed which make certain other things more likely. A convergence of evidence. The reality is, this is the sort of thing the NSA would use to find a target with their automated hacking solution. That is what "Metadata" actually is. Not the contents of the message, but the information surrounding the message itself. And companies do it too, though typically in regards to purchase data and such. Like how Target can figure out you're pregnant before you tell anyone.

Which is still silly because all gamefly wanted to do to 'verify' his identity was conduct a phone call. The thief could have done so from a payphone or neutral location and gotten the game anyway.

So the issue with this is that it helps prevent both casual theft and large-scale theft. A phone call will generally scare off any kids who happened to grab their parent's credit cards. It also means a large-scale attack can't easily be done without raising alarms. If 100 people happen to have a suspicious charge in a short period of time and all 100 give phone numbers associated with a particular phone booth in a country completely different from their stated location, it's pretty clear what's going on. You could get around these issues, but it's about running faster than your slowest friend, not running faster than the bear. They aren't going to secure you against a targeted attack by someone with even basic pen testing knowledge, but nor will anything else tbh.

Bump for more SpaceX news:
Today the aforementioned launch took place; the first stage apparently made a successful landing over the ocean, as evidenced both by the final telemetry they received and the final transmissions to the tracking aircraft indicating transmissions for 8 seconds after touchdown in the ocean until it rolled on its side (or in other words, it landed fully intact rather than smashing into the surface and disintegrating). Unfortunately no video of the touchdown, due to rough weather and clouds preventing the recovery ship from being in a good observation position.
Video of the launch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLJ3vns3Zys

Additionally, a test took place yesterday of their new Grasshopper replacement. This new rocket is around twice the height, and is really just a Falcon 9 first stage, pretty much the same as what landed today. Video here, with the grasshopper rocket nearby (on the right at the video start): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UjWqQPWmsY&feature=youtu.be

This is all quite impressive for a couple reasons. First and most obvious, it means they've basically got a working reusable first stage for their rockets now, which is pretty big in itself. A second impressive feat is the fact that they launched both the vehicle in the video followed up by a launch to the ISS with a separate vehicle in about a 24 hour timeframe. One of them may not have been a full to-orbit mission, but such a small turnaround time on launching a test flight to launching a mission coupled with a test landing is pretty darn cool.

On a side note, spacex apparently has really good wiki pages with even more details than you would get in a KSP part config.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merlin_(rocket_engine_family)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falcon_9_v1.1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_(rocket_engine)

Huh. Was in a Skyguard, hanging out on the top of a massively tall plateau overlooking a battle down below. Enemy lightning armed with a proper cannon comes up behind me, leaving me nowhere to run. Naturally, I drive my lightning off the massive cliff, hit exit vehicle button just as it hits the ground, and actually manage to hop out unscathed, while the tank explodes. Turns out I dropped behind enemy lines, right at the back entrance to the base they're at. Killed several of them before they even noticed me.

So... apparently drop-tanks are a thing.