Desodablog

Steam Friends down for maintenance…

2008-07-25T20:22:00.003+02:00

This is what usually greets me when I want to play games:

Steam is constantly broken…

Steam, and its wonderful update-system

2008-03-14T18:04:00.007+01:00

Why is it so, that when I open up Steam there's an update that I have to wait for? Why wasn't this done while I was away and not using the computer? It's on 24/7, and Steam is always running. It can't be that hard to make it just a little better, can it?

Plus, how many times do Steam claim there's an update, when, in fact, there is none?

Steam is a clunky piece of crap that is long overdue for some major overhaul.

Electronic Arts in Hostile Bid to Acquire Take Two

2008-02-27T00:56:00.008+01:00

Entertainment software giant Electronic Arts announced Feb. 24 that it was seeking to merge with GTA publisher Take Two Interactive in what would be a two billion dollar deal.

More info (gamepolitics.com)

– Oh, crap...

Take Two Interactive released a response to Electronic Arts’ hostile takeover bid, where the board confirmed EA’s offer and pronounced it "inadequate in multiple respects and not in the best interests of Take-Two’s stockholders."

More info (gamepolitics.com)

– Yay! Go Take-Two!

Another dead-tree spam

2008-02-18T18:50:00.011+01:00

Received another dead-tree spam in the mail today. Pity the poor trees who give their lives for the thieving, moneygrubbing bastards who send out this trash...

Oh, yeah.. The offender: partypo(r)ker.com. Another poker-site that will never get to see any of my money.

Once in a lifetime opportunity... – Oh, yeah? To get to poke you with a red-hot branding-iron? Sign me up. No? Forget about it then...

Dear <name>,

You are a WINNER! – And you are all losers. Stop bugging me about it.

A seat in a REAL MONEY $20,000 tournament absolutely FREE* – ..only your SOUL!

...and a lot of marketing bullshit followed. Bah..

The return address on the back of the envelope was:

TIPH, 32-33 Clipper Boulevard East, Edison's Park, Dartford, UK, DA2 6QB.

Go die already...

Counter Stike and Everquest banned in Brazil!

2008-01-19T16:03:00.002+01:00

Rejoyce! A Brazilian federal court has issued a ban on the games Counter Strike and Everquest. Appearently they incited violence and were "harmful to consumers' health." According to the judge, the games encouraged "the subversion of public order, were an attack against the democratic state and the law and against public security." Holy shit! And I thought the criminals, drugs, and terrorists were.

On a sidenote; The article didn't mention when they were banning football.

AFP: Brazil bans popular video games seen to incite violence

SimCity is finally OSS!

2008-01-13T04:32:00.000+01:00

SimCity has been released as opensource under the title Micropolis. Rejoyce! Read more. Download Micropolis!

Dead-tree spam

2008-01-02T18:23:00.002+01:00

Received the following letter in the mail today:

<Name>
<Address>

Dear <Name>,

The CD You Have Just Received is Loaded With
500€ in REAL CASINO CREDIT.

What would you do if you walked past a casino and were handed 500€ in real currency to spend at the tables? Would you throw the money away or would you go in and see what you could turn that into?

Well that is exactly what we are giving you with the enclosed CD. It is loaded with 500€ in real casino credit and you have 1 hour to make as much money as you can from the comfort of your own home and you get to keep what you win!

The offer is risk free so get ready to experience the 200+ games we have available at Captain C(r)ooks Casino. You wouldn't believe the graphics and sounds, not to mention the Million Dollar Jackpots that are just itching to be hit!

Here is how it works:

Pop the CD into your computer. The CD will load the casino software onto your computer and the timer will start when you click on 'Start Free Play'.

You will then be credited 500€ and have 1 hour to make as much money as you can after which you can enjoy your winnings. It's our money so you can't lose! And, you get to keep what you win!

And remember, if you don't win you can still claim the matching welcome bonus of up to 50€ with your first purchase of 50€ or more.

Good luck at the tables - kick start your bankroll today!

Best wishes,

Steven C(r)ooke
Casino Host

The envelope was unmarked, but it appears like it was sent from Germany. The casino in question is Captain C(r)ooks Casino.

Here's the whois-info on their website:

Registrant:
John and Kernick (In Trust)
   165 West Street
   Sandton, Gauteng 2146
   ZA

   Domain Name: CAPTAINC(r)OOKSCASINO.COM

   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Promote your business to millions of viewers for only $1 a month
   Learn how you can get an Enhanced Business Listing here for your domain name.
   Learn more at http://www.NetworkSolutions.com/
   ------------------------------------------------------------------------

   Administrative Contact:
      Administrator, DNS Duncan         dns-tech@bowman.co.za
      Bowman Gilfillan
      PO Box 785812
      Sandton, Gauteng 2146
      ZA
      +27 11 669 9000 fax: + 27 11 669 9001

   Technical Contact:
      John & Kernick, Bowman Gilfillan Inc.             dns-tech@BOWMAN.CO.ZA
      Kernick House, Howick Close
      Midrand, Gauteng 1685
      ZA
      +27 11 695 3500 fax: +27 11 315 7444

   Record expires on 10-Mar-2009.
   Record created on 10-Mar-1999.
   Database last updated on 2-Jan-2008 12:43:46 EST.

   Domain servers in listed order:

   DNS1.CURACAOHOSTING.COM
   DNS.CURACAOHOSTING.COM       63.245.50.57
   DNS.CURACAOHOSTING.NET       196.37.200.108

They are hosted on 207.219.111.20, and the whois on that is:

OrgName:    TELUS Communications Inc.
OrgID:      TACE
Address:    #2600 4720 Kingsway Avenue
City:       Burnaby
StateProv:  BC
PostalCode: V5N-4N2
Country:    CA

ReferralServer: rwhois://rwhois.telus.net:4321

NetRange:   207.219.0.0 - 207.219.255.255
CIDR:       207.219.0.0/16
NetName:    TELUS-207-219-0-0
NetHandle:  NET-207-219-0-0-1
Parent:     NET-207-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Allocation
NameServer: PRI3.DNS.CA.TELUS.COM
NameServer: PRI4.DNS.CA.TELUS.COM
Comment:
RegDate:
Updated:    2002-08-12

RTechHandle: PSINET-CA-ARIN
RTechName:   TELUS IP Address Administration
RTechPhone:  +1-604-444-5791
RTechEmail:  IPAdmin@telus.com

OrgAbuseHandle: AAT-ARIN
OrgAbuseName:   Abuse at TELUS
OrgAbusePhone:  +1-877-310-8324
OrgAbuseEmail:  abuse@telus.com

OrgTechHandle: TBOTP-ARIN
OrgTechName:   TELUS BC ORG TECH POC
OrgTechPhone:  +1-877-310-8324
OrgTechEmail:  IPadmin@telus.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-01-01 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.


Found a referral to rwhois.telus.net:4321.

%rwhois V-1.5:003ab7:00 rwhois.telus.net (by Network Solutions, Inc. V-1.5.7.3)
network:Class-Name:network
network:ID:1047.207.219.0.0/16
network:Auth-Area:207.219.0.0/16
network:Network-Name:TELUS
network:IP-Network:207.219.111.0/24
network:Org-Name:TELUS
network:Street-Address:3777 Kingsway
network:City:Burnaby
network:State-Province:BC
network:Country-Code:CA
network:Postal-Code:V5N-4N2
network:Updated:2005-08-31 (20:55:48)
network:Created:2005-03-10 (21:18:51)
network:Admin-Contact:hostmaster@telus.com
network:Abuse-Contact:abuse@telus.com (1-604-444-5791)
network:Tech-Contact:swip@swip.ca.telus.com

If just someone did a drive-by on these people...

Somebody in Denmark appearently received the same spam.
Another thread on the same issue. Pity I don't read Dutch.

Fuck myminicity.com and the spamming little twats

2007-12-21T12:41:00.000+01:00

myminicity.com can go fuck themselves with their little "game". It's not even a fucking game, it's just a hit-counter. But these little twats think it's fucking great and run around spamming their little "cities" on every fucking venue possible.

FUCK myminicity.com, their creators motion-twin.com, and the imbesiles that play their lame excuse for a "game". TWATS!

I hope they all step on a rusty nail, get tetanus, and die.

I am not alone...

Blog-post of interest - games-pro spam, Yahoo and Google “Feeling Lucky”

2007-12-12T22:56:00.000+01:00

Quote from games-pro spam, Yahoo and Google “Feeling Lucky”:

A quantity of Yahoo webmail spam kindly deposited its self in one of our many millions of spamtraps, DKIM signed, SPF passed Etc, Etc. Inside it was a link to a “feeling lucky” link c/o rival search giant Google.
Abused Search Host: http://www.google.com/
Search Function: search?q=
Search Feature Text in the URL: inurl:games-pro
Search Feature Text int he page: intext: won1 million megabet from casino online
Search Invisible Redirect Feature: btnI=Lucky
If you put this lot back together you’ll get an invisible redirect (302) to casino-games-pro that’ll try and auto-install the CasOnline PUP. Charming.
I’d like to point out here that if you try to send a spammy link out via yahoo webmail they captcha test the sender. (but they also did that when the accounts were setup, right?) The trick here is the fact that there is nothing spammy about a search link. I have no doubt that /btnl=Lucky/ will be hitting the filters at Yahoos webmail HQ very shortly if it hasn’t already.

Cherry-Cola is back!

2007-12-07T20:57:00.001+01:00

Someone has taken it upon themselves to start importing cherry-flavored Coca-Cola to Norway again. Saw this one in the local supermarket this afternoon, and I just had to get it. It tasted just as horrible as I remembered.

Gamespot...

2007-12-03T01:00:00.000+01:00

'Nuff said...

When life just blows... FUKITOL!

2007-11-14T14:14:00.000+01:00

Number of kills, God vs Satan

2007-11-09T10:16:00.000+01:00

God is the current leader. Satan has some catching-up to do.

Hotlinking

2007-11-07T15:25:00.001+01:00

I started to get tired of people hotlinking certain images on the webserver I admin, so I went on a quest to find images I'd serve them instead of that they wanted. I found a bunch of nice ones, but settled for these:

"do not hotlink unless you know you won’t be made a fool of." - stephendeken.net

Samsung's Engrish software

2007-11-04T18:26:00.000+01:00

Installed the firmware upgrade-software that came with my Samsung DVD-drive. What on earth does this mean:

It has changed to check whether the automatic upgrades of the new liveupdate program and ODD firmware have been done from 3~5 minutes after the window booting.
2. The entering type of E-mail address has been changed.
The special characters can be inputted in an E-mail ID, except Korean and @.

And then, when the ting is installed, this is what they present us:

(ODD F/W LiveUpdate) You has not registered.

Odd indeed.

Problems in Memtest

2007-10-28T21:04:00.001+01:00

Ran into problems while running Memtest86. No errors, it justs hangs a few minutes into the test. Ripped out two ramsticks; Tests ran fine. Replaced them with the other two; Tests still ran fine. Inserted three sticks; Tests = Fine.

Compatability-problems RAM/motherboard?

Will try upping the voltage and see where it leads...

EDIT: Increased the memory voltage to 2V. Seems to be running fine now.

Bluescreen #7

2007-10-28T12:14:00.000+01:00

New BSOD!

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP: 0x0000000A

Error message when you try to install Windows Vista on a computer that uses more than 3 GB of RAM: "STOP 0x0000000A"

Bluescreen #6

2007-10-28T12:01:00.000+01:00

Yay for me!! Another BSOD, and a familiar one at that. DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL FTW!

Bluescreen #5

2007-10-28T09:49:00.000+01:00

Yet another BSOD. A blast from the past, this time; dxgkrnl.sys...

Bluescreen #4

2007-10-28T02:03:00.000+01:00

BUGCODE_USB_DRIVER
STOP 0x000000FE

That's funny, Microsoft. You offer a hotfix, but I have to contact Customer Services to get it? Nice.

Bluescreen #3

2007-10-28T02:00:00.000+01:00

PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA
STOP 0x00000050

Culprit: dxgkrnl.sys - or so it tells me.

It offered me a memory-test this time. Yay.. It froze at 54%...

Bluescreen #2

2007-10-28T01:57:00.000+02:00

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP 0x000000D1

The BSOD claims afd.sys is he culprit. I have doubts.

Bluescreen #1

2007-10-28T01:55:00.000+02:00

DRIVER_IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL
STOP 0x000000D1

No indicaton on what happened.. Yay.

Plus a hundred other BSODs that didn't give ANY information at all.

New 'puter

2007-10-28T01:52:00.000+02:00

Asus P5K SE
Intel E6850
4GB GeIL PC6400 RAM
MSI 8600GT
Vista x64

= Bluescreens galore.

Either Vista doesn't like 4 GB RAM, or the motherboard doesn't. Or both.

Damn Spam!

2007-10-24T10:36:00.000+02:00

Damn Spam. A comrade-in-arms in the battle against spam.

StupidFilter

2007-10-11T09:49:00.000+02:00

Finally, a filter that can detect and block the rampant stupidity in my blogposts.

It's time to fight back.

The solution we're creating is simple: an open-source filter software that can detect rampant stupidity in written English. This will be accomplished with weighted Bayesian analysis and some rules-based processing, similar to spam detection engines. The primary challenge inherent in our task is that stupidity is not a binary distinction, but rather a matter of degree. To this end, we're collecting a ranked corpus of stupid text, gleaned from user comments on public websites and ranked on a five-point scale.

Eventually, once the research is completed, we plan to release core engine source code for incorporation into content management systems, blogs, wikis and the like. Additionally, we plan to develop a fully implemented Firefox plugin and a Wordpress plugin.

StupidFilter

SCO going down...

2007-10-02T10:46:00.000+02:00

Going...

Going...

Installation-woe

2007-09-11T22:06:00.001+02:00

Installing Logitech SetPoint v2.3 - Worked like a charm.

Attempting to upgrade to SetPoint v3.3a - Well...

The ordinal 4100 could not be located in the dynamic link library MFC80U.DLL.

Trying to install SetPoint v4.0?? - Nope. Same error-message... Craptasticular!

Google "mfc80u.dll setpoint.exe" and similar turned up nothing, but a quick stop and download over at dll-files.com later produced a brand new mfc80u.dll-file which I chucked into the appropriate directory (C:\WINDOWS\WinSxS\ x86_Microsoft.VC80.MFC_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.762_x-ww_3bf8fa05 for some strange reason), and voila - a working SetPoint-application. Whee...

Now, I'm off killing some Logitech-employees...

List of YouTube chain letters

2007-03-21T15:41:00.000+01:00

This is an attempt to list all the different chain letters that seems to overflow YouTube at the moment:

PLEASE DONT READ
In 1945, a young girl named katu lata kulu came over to America in a grey boat from Africa. A mysterious man killed her by cutting the word "LATUALATUKA" into her back. now that you have read this message, she will come to your house on a full moon and steal your soul unless you follow these directions:

1. Retype this message as a comment for 3 other videos

1876, a young girl named Jenn was walking down a river, an insane man killed her by stabbing her in the back, raping her, and then hanging her in his closet. While he hanged her he said Bukakke Bukkake.
Now that you have read this message, she will find you and her dead body will haunt your house for 5 years. Every night you go to sleep she will appear in your closet, hanging their with her glowing red eyes.
repost 3 times to be saved

Because you have opened this... you will get kissed on the nearest possible Friday by the love of your life... if you don't break the chain. Tomorrow will be the best day of your life. However, if you don't send this to at least 10 people by the stroke of midnight tonight you will be forever cursed in love. Just copy and paste this.. Good Luck!

PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. You will get kissed on the nearest possible Friday by the love of your life. Tomorrow will be the best day of your life. However, if you don't post this comment to at least 3 videos, you will die within 2 days. Copy and paste this, to be saved

this is a true thing that happens! its not a chain letter! its kinda scary at first but it really works!! paste this message into 3 comments and press ALT F4 and your crushes name will appear on the screen!!! its soo wierd!

There are 20 angels in this world
10 are sleeping
9 are playing
1 is reading this

put this on 4 video comments within 15 mins,if u do, sum one u love will surprise u sum how!! If u don't , u will lose ur love.!!

Read on if you consider yourself brave: As of now if you stop reading it does you no good even this line bears the same consequence.
I wish the death of a family member. I curse myself. The number five counteracts the curse. Someone that I love will die in twenty-four hours unless I repost this letter 5 times. If I fail to do so the curse is on me and only I am to blame

IF YOU BELIEVE IN THE LORD THEN THIS WILL FREAK YOU OUT.SERIOUSLY. SIGN UP FOR FREE AT THIS LINK *w w w .bigchurch. com/go/g844208* (without spaces and *) and post this comment to just one video.Witness a miracle..

if you are or have read this comment then you are cursed for life. You will have a terrible life and never get married (if you are already married you will get divorced). Only way to undo this curse is if you comment 5 videos with this exact message

In 1342, a man sacrificed his life in the name of true love. Before he was beheaded, he yelled "Monholith deir mustzfah".

Now that you have read these holy words, you have 8 hours to repost this on 3 different videos, and you and the love of your dreams will find each other within 8 days. If you should fail, this offer will never be available again

Now, can you mindless YouTube-spamming, chain letter-posting idiots please go and die? Thanks.

YouTube chain letters

2007-03-21T15:39:00.000+01:00

What's up with people posting chain-letters on YouTube? Do they really believe in them, or are they just doing it for the fun of it? And, what on earth can be fun about posting these inane messages? They all seem to have been written by fourteen-year-olds.

Beastie detected

2007-03-08T22:46:00.000+01:00

My present 'net-connection

2006-09-15T20:03:00.000+02:00

Well, there it is. My old ZyXEL ISDN-adapter. Bah...

Migrated to the beta, finally

2006-08-31T02:44:00.000+02:00

Tried to migrate to the beta again today, and it worked. It wasn't quite what I wanted, but it beats the way it's been up to now.

An easier way...

2006-08-17T15:42:00.000+02:00

I finally found an easier route to my old blogs. I found it in a thread on Google Groups concerning this problem, courtesy of http://blogger-tricks.blogspot.com/. Now I don't have to jump though hoops anymore to get to my blogs.

But they still haven't fixed the underlaying problem.

Still bugged...

2006-08-17T02:37:00.000+02:00

After some relogging, cursing, rebooting, playing some games - San Andreas, to be precise (had to kill many pedestrians to let off some steam) - I have some more insight on the problem. It's not limited to me and my blogs. Others have reported the same problem as I have. Unfortunately, it seems the Blogger-people aren't doing anything about it.

I received an canned autoresponse on the error-report I sent, asking me to reset my password. Hm. Tried that - no worky. Sending another one.

I have found that the only way to get access to my old blogs is by posting a comment, either on my or someone elses blog, and clicking my nickname (Soda). Then I'm able to edit my real profile and go to my old dashboard. Annoying.

More on the bugs in the new Blogger beta

2006-08-16T22:33:00.000+02:00

I think I've sussed out what causes my problems with the new Blogger beta. This is what I think happened:

To switch to the beta you are supposed to go through a process in which you will migrate your old blogs to the beta, and you won't be able to go back to the old system. I never got any questions to whether I wanted to migrate...

I have - or had, as the case may be - the same username on Blogger and Google (my Google Mail address) and the same password on both. When I logged on Blogger, the system - in its infinite wisdom, or by the programmers' oversight - instead of logging me into my Blogger-account, started using my Google-account instead, thereby creating a whole new blog. So it now appears like I have two accounts, one on the old Blogger-system, and one via my Google-account - with the same username (my gmail-address). Funny that.

I haven't gotten a reply on my error-report yet, but they might be swamped with problems. I cannot believe I'm the only one with the same problem.

I did a password-retrieval on my Blogger-account, and by doing that I could access my old blog again. I'm going to relog now and see if I can get back in...

The new Blogger beta...

2006-08-15T23:41:00.000+02:00

The new beta of Blogger should probably still be in closed Google-only beta.

When I logged on Blogger today, instead of dropping me onto my dashboard, the system wanted me to create a blog! Uh? What? No, no. I have a blog... Back, back. Log in again. Must be a glitch.
But oh no. My two old blogs were gone, and my dashboard was empty. So I did some snooping around. Appearently, they released a new beta of Blogger. They are merging their old Blogger-accounts with the Google-accounts, and I, somehow, was trapped in-between them. OK, I thought. I must be able to access my old ones. But how? I relogged. OK, I should be able to log into the new beta OR the old one, according to the links I get as I log in. But, alas, no. I get redirected to beta.blogger.com no matter what I click. So, I made an "I hate the new Blogger beta"-blog on my new, now unwanted, blog, and went to submit an error-report.
Then, things went weird on me. I can select which blog I'm having trouble with on my error-submission, but the new blog is nowhere to be found. Instead I find my two other - REAL - blogs. An error-form submitted later, I go searching for more info.
Slashdot had a story on the new beta, with a link to a Blogspot blogpost about it. There was no mention of problems similar to mine, so I went ahead and submitted a comment about my troubles. I don't like being anonymous, so I entered my username and password to login and post the comment, and as I did, my old - REAL - info emerged. Plus a link to my old profile. And on the profile, a link to edit it. It must recognize me! Whee. Now we're getting somewhere.
A quick edit and a few clicks later I'm on my old dashboard - on www.blogger.com, and not beta.blogger.com - and I can finally post on my old blogs.

Now, if I can only find a topic to talk about...

It too hot!

2006-07-27T18:12:00.000+02:00

This is me right now:

It's just too freaking hot right now. It's not natural, damn it!

The above picture of me was shamlessly stolen from this wallpaper from Penny Arcade:

Thinking by The Khin & Henriette

2006-06-15T12:56:00.000+02:00

If you want a nice tune to listen to, why not try out Thinking by The Khin & Henriette?

Piratebay taken down by Swedish police

2006-06-03T04:02:00.000+02:00

Piratebay taken down by Swedish police.

Who's next? Ebay?

The Commodore 64 Tape Preservation Project

2006-06-02T09:44:00.000+02:00

Ever head of The Commodore 64 Tape Preservation Project? Well you have now. Their goal is to preserve as much information as possible about every tape ever released for the Commodore 64. That includes the tape images, inlay scans, documentation, screen shots, information about publishers, developers and other relevant information. They aim to become THE site for accurate and complete documentation of Commodore 64 tapes and tape loaders.
If you are a Commodore 64-fan, or just generally interested in the 8-bit era, just visit The Commodore 64 Tape Preservation Project.

Peeping Tom on Late Night With Conan O'Brien

2006-06-02T09:35:00.000+02:00

You can find the recording as a stream on YouTube, or for download at Bungle Fever's FTP-site.

Those on stage were:

Dan the Automator
Rob Swift
Dub Trio
Rahzel
Imani Coppola
Mike Patton

Peeping Tom

2006-06-02T09:12:00.000+02:00

Mike Patton's new project Peeping Tom is now out after 4 years in the making, with the appropriate album-title Peeping Tom. Considering Patton's other projects (if you leave out Faith No More and, to an extent, Tomahawk) weren't what you might call "radio-fiendly", this album has a serious chance of getting some airplay even on the most commercial of radio-stations. That's right. Patton's gone mainstream. OK, not quite. There are still many Patton-isms on this record, even though the outcome is what you (or more spesifically, Mike Patton) can call pop(-ish).
Peeping Tom had their live debut on Late Night With Conan O'Brien May 26 with their single 'Mojo'.

Errors Påskeparty 2006

2006-03-21T00:18:00.000+01:00

Errors Party is being held this easter. Go visit errors.no for more information.

Be there!

Wow, a blog. How about that...

2006-03-20T22:37:00.000+01:00

Ok, I got nothing...