Tom Peterson: Free is a very good price.

Someone on my LJ friends list mentioned that 'free is a very good price' today. It rung a bell in the back of my mind but I couldn't figure out why. Until it hit me like a large glowing cross on the hill near a freeway. It was Tom Peterson that said that on local channels (for local people) ushering people into his store for freebies with their purchases.

We lived in deep South East Portland before my family took off to Texas. We played at Mt Scott park and went to the Presbyterian church just off the corner. During the summer there were wonderful cherry trees that spilled blossoms all over the street. There were activity days with turkey sandwiches and a massive pool right next door. Back then I read and reread the Ramona Quimby books and learned along with her that you couldn't stand in the middle of the I-5 bridge.

So Tom, for bringing back some happy memories, I salute you.

Dennis Zhidkov PR manager of suing people

So I went over to BoingBoing to have a look at the lawsuit thing. They're pretty much skim-able now so I missed this bit originally. In essence, someone is upset that Starforce's 'technology' is being called mean names. That means that they get to threaten the legal smack down. Where the hell do these companies find PR people?

The guy in question, Dennis Zhidkov, seems to have a healthy habit of throwing threats around:

He's also gone after Tom's Hardware

CNet


To give him credit, he did write a lengthy treatise trying to get people to install the software voluntary for some money.

The very bestest quote is this one:
'In the past year our staff and many of our clients tried restlessly to reproduce the matter based on these rumors. Using our hardware collection we assembled systems alike, but such problems never took place.
Therefore, we have no proven facts of such issues and we have found out that all of these rumors are false.'

Well, since you say so Dennis in PR, I'll believe you.

Cross Racing Championship 2005 and Singles 2: Triple Trouble. Starforce is bad and I am stupid.

I reviewed CRC 2005 for Grrlgamer a few months ago and Singles 2: Triple Trouble before that. I saw the Starforce thing crop up but didn't actually notice anything being installed. Since then, however, I do occasionally have problems accessing CDs and DVDs. Related? Both games have painfully long loading times (up to 5 minutes) which means there's something creeping around at the start.

I have copied CDs since Singles 2 and CRC 2005. I didn't have any problems after I stopped a few XP services. (Which has always been an issue in between Nero and I. We have an understanding.)

Tonight I think I'll have to have a look around. I don't like the idea of my system being more vulnerable than normal. I've rebuilt it that many times from the wreckage of various infections, memory issues, overall slowness that I really don't feel like doing it again in the near future.

Now, I know how to locate hidden bits in Device Manager but in case you don't here is a walk through.

I'm feeling a little funny about this. I chose Singles 2 as a holiday pick for 2005 and wrote a positive review. Despite my ambivalence towards the Sim genre I really fucking loved this game. Hell, I just kept on recommending it to friends and enemies alike with absolutely no warning about Starforce at all. My enthusiasm did overflow. But with my enthusiasm for said game and graphic descriptions of the 'Self Service' option*, I'm wondering if I snuck some nasties into other people's machines. See, I didn't notice and omitted it from my review.

I did make a note about Starforce (I know that sounds a little crap in retrospect.) I did wonder what the hell it was doing with my machine but never actually investigated. It even has an 'I'M INSTALLING SOMETHING ON YOUR COMPUTER' bar. Just goes to prove that certifications and experience do not eradicate massive lapses in judgement.


There should be a Hippocratic oath for game reviewers and IT techs. The first thing it should say is:

1. Any advice I give will include the obvious and all precautions.



Thank god Black and White 2 wasn't on the list.

*girlish twittering

More to come.

The Consumerist knows.

Emily Booth sells her clothes on EBay

Oh. Hooray. I have no idea who Emily Booth is but she seems to be adverse to wearing some clothes. The EBay auction for her jacket seems a little bit cruel. It's been cold this winter. The weather report for Greater Manchester said a high of 4 degrees C or 39 F.

I'm not saying I hope she freezes to death for her contribution to the female portion of the gaming hobby. All I'm saying is you don't see enough moderately attractive men in hot leather jackets advertising games.

Perhaps when The Rock is looking for some work.

Pennington Flash, Wigan and my dog phobia

FlashSunset2
Originally uploaded by vulgarcriminal.

For the last year and a half I've been battling a dog phobia. It started with a general anxiety about something that had happened and didn't deal with well. (I couldn't get drunk with it or yell so it all became a little, er, overarching.) Then, in October of 2004 I encountered a foul human being of the Bolton population with a rather feisty yellow Lab.

Over the next 6 months I was twitchy until I pretty much refused to go anywhere with dogs. Being the sort of stupid person who gets lost intentionally in Venice, I'm finding being phobic rather limiting. I purchased a book that recommended slow exposure. We've run the gambit of places that probably won't have dogs and are now heading to ones that probably will.

This photo doesn't contain any canines but wasn't it worth going out for?

My little peanut sauce. Strange advertising.

peanut
Originally uploaded by vulgarcriminal.

I haven't really posted anything personal here for a while. Our holidays were great if frought with homesickness. I'm now at the end of a very slow and dreary January.

This photo is a blurry one of a young lady advertising 'My Little Peanut Sauce.' I don't know about you but when I think of owning peanut sauce I don't associate it with young Asian children. Usually I think 'this will be good on some chicken.' Advertisers usually think that as well. 'Our product will be good on some poultry. Here's a fluffed up photo of a chicken breast to give you ideas.'

How on Earth the branding people behind this one thought this little cherub was going to remind you that peanut sauce is for eating, I haven't a clue. But you know, if sataying some little girl for your supper is your thing then this is probably marketed directly to you.

Are you being paid enough?

Someone on a forum I'm on posted a nifty little tool for checking market rates in the UK for certain IT skillsets. Thus far I think it's a little ambitious but still makes me hopeful about a raise!

ITJobswatch.co.uk

E3 forcing booth babes to wear some clothes

No shit. Apparently a policy about wearing some clothes has been in place for a long time. The E3 organizers just couldn't be asked to enforce it. This year they're promising that vendors with women who wear bikini bottoms or are partially naked will get a warning and fined a pathetic 5,000 dollars.

Pardon me if I'm not leaping out of my chair for joy here. Until I see a bunch of men with Jarhead physiques dressed in skimpy little police uniforms I'm not going to be happy. *

Via joystiq

*Because, you know, sex sells and stuff. So why the hell aren't they selling to ME?

Fergie pees in her panties and can't count.

The more I see photos of Fergie Pea doing things, the more I'm convinced she's actually 4.

A slow 4 year old, mind, I'm sure I could count to six then.



Via UK Resistance

I want a short Americano please: The economics of short and tall at Starbucks

Slate has a fantastic run down of the disappearance of short beverages from Starbucks' menus. I do recall a time when Short was listed and the 20 oz Venti didn't actually exist. I think I was a teensy bit excited about that much egg nog latte.

I could be wrong. I still pretend I'm a rockstar. (Roger.)

Unsurprisingly the movitation behind serving up VERY BIG COFFEES is to milk your wallet dry.

Tags:

• starbucks
• money
• slate
• economics
• business

Mining Uranium in Utah

I knew there was something about this press release detailing permits to mine uranium in Utah that made me uncomfortable. After a quick Internet mosey I found the following:

1. Leftovers from uranium mining (called tailings) 'contain 85 per cent of the original radioactivity in the ore: they contain thorium-230, radium-226, and all the other uranium by-products. The tailings also give off at least 10,000 times as much radon gas as the undisturbed ore. (When radon gas is produced inside hard rock, it has little chance to escape; but when the rock is pulverized, radon escapes easily.)' Nevermind a teenage wasteland, that's far worse than kids having underage sex and smoking. From the CCNR dangers.

2. There's a potential that in a light wind byproducts could be deposited to vegetation. 'So that you actually get radon daughters in animals, fish and plants thousands of miles away from where the uranium mining is done. It's a mechanism for pumping radioactivity into the environment for millennia to come, and this is one of the hidden dangers.' From Ratical

There's a lot more but those two seem serious enough to be that uranium mining would cause quite the outcry. Especially considering Utah is already having to clean up previous uranium mining efforts.

Americans learning by our mistakes? Not possible.

Portland Horse Rings

Along the sidewalks in downtown Portland are rings. I'd always wondered what they were used for. I think I came to the conclusion that they must be for horses or something similar.

Portland Pictures thinks so too.

Tags:

• portland
• random

How to save web pages

If you can read this on the Internet you are far, far luckier than I am. My host has apparently suffered some sort of attack that was 'resolved' on Tuesday. I beg to differ. I haven't been able to view my website since they said the problem was fixed.

Originally my problem was with DNS, no resolution, as confirmed by checkdns.net Fair enough right? Everyone knows DNS sometimes falls over. That was an error 503. Then it hopped over to an error 500, which usually means a server problem of some sort. According to checkupdown.com, 500 is

"a 'catch-all' error generated by your Web server. Basically something has gone wrong, but the server can not be more specific about the error condition in its response to the client." So, the web server I'm hosted on is having problems.

I mail tech support directly because I've had significant problems getting a prompt response using the web form. They say everything should be fine. I point out that when I ping my server, packets are being dropped 50% of the time and the ones that do make it end up with 180ms. I think, 'that's pretty damned high.' For a ping to Google I get an average send of 32ms. For Yahoo, 105 and for my friend's site, hosted on his Powerbook with a cable connection I get 200. What the hell? 180 and 200 are pretty damned close but I'm using a professional hosting service.

So I e-mail them again and take note that my Bloglines feed page isn't being picked up as symbolized by one of these ! It's definitely not my imagination. If my mails with tech support were a conversation, it would look something like this:

Me: I can't connect to my site
Them: Everything is fine
Me: ? Where are you checking from? I still can't connect.
Them: We had an attack and everything is fine.
Me: No. No it's not. It's probably still an issue with your ISP. I'm getting error 500 and checkdns.net can't connect via port 80.
Them: Everything is fine. I've just checked your site and it came up.
Me: WHERE ARE YOU CHECKING FROM? I'm getting pathetic ping times and dropping packets! This isn't good! What is going on?
Them: We had an attack on our ISP and everything should be fine.
Me: NO. BLOGLINES IS NOT FINE, CHECKDNS IS NOT FINE, I AM NOT FINE. WHERE ARE YOU LOOKING AT MY SITE FROM?!
Them: We had an attack on our ISP and everything should be fine.
Me: *repeat*

I haven't had a response from the last three e-mails I've sent them. Today has been a little big more exciting. It's ranged from 500, 503 to a brief period of uptime to 504. All of these things point to traffic problems. My concern is my host isn't actually acknowledging that anyone is still having any problems.

I suspect the reason that they don't think there's a problem is because they're checking internally to see if my site is up. Which, you know, isn't going to matter much when it comes to network problems from the ISP. I've since discovered, from the 'help' forums, that I can't connect to other sites on the same server.

So, webhost, if you're reading this, tell your ISP they suck and you're still having problems.

Tags:

• backups
• tools
• utilities
• freeware

Bluehost.com/0Catch whatever

I didn't do a lot of checking this blog while I was on holiday. It's a good thing as well. I am now back to work and for the last two days I've been getting error 500 or DNS errors when I try and connect. The latter are apparently from an attack of sorts on my host's ISP. Considering the amount of down time I've had already I'm not happy. It's been two days now and I still can't access my own website.