Elliott C. Back: In Aere Aedificare

So, I’m going to see Superman Returns tomorrow with my sister, and I thought I’d check out the previews, which you can get in HD from Apple’s trailer site: http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/supermanreturns/hd/. Starring Brandon Routh and Kate Bosworth, the film grossed about $20,000,000 on opening day, neither hot nor cold. The trailer is great, though. Check out this screenshot:

The first trailer is glorified Superman, savior of the earth. A narrator (Kal-el’s father), tells him how good the people of the earth are, if only they had someone to guide them. The visual imagery shows Superman in the adoring gaze of the crowds, basking in the sun’s halo, and with his all-time favorite girl, Lois Lane.

This second photo is from the second trailer–which is more about Superman’s past than anything else. Watching both trailers will probably give you some major spoilers for the movie, but how can you resist?

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The WoW 1.11.0 patch introduced a new global looking for group (LFG) channel. Now, anyone on the same side of the battle (Alliance / Horde) will be able to talk to anyone else on the game server. Before, people could only chat with people in the same sub-region, which made the LFG channel a great place to actually find a group. Now, it’s being infected with spam. I’d like to show you some random examples (screenshots) of the new LFG channel:

[4. LookingForGroup] [Oclavionus]: LFG Gnomer
[4. LookingForGroup] [Dorminose]: LFM VC
[4. LookingForGroup] [Poslullio]: LFM DM WEST
[4. LookingForGroup] [Fydin]: LF2M WC
[4. LookingForGroup] [Fuubarr]: LF mage and warrior for scholo
[4. LookingForGroup] [Octavionus]: LFG Gnomer
[4. LookingForGroup] [Infamousant]: LFM STOCKADE
[4. LookingForGroup] [Namine]: LF2M for gnomeregan need a preist.

This is exactly what a LFG channel should be for–finding a group for your quest. However, it’s not always like that:

[4. LookingForGroup] [Rathrora]: dude, you know what, petmetoo, you are a f*****ng tool, just stfu
[4. LookingForGroup] [Koriz]: nana
[4. LookingForGroup] [Wreckless]: me and petmetoo have our reporting badges.
[4. LookingForGroup] [Infamousant]: LFG STOCKADE
[4. LookingForGroup] [Petmetoo]: ya
[4. LookingForGroup] [Alliancesuck]: thats got be 5 v/eeks there

Often, the LFG channel has turned into a banning/reporting frenzy as people fill it with various kinds of spam and profanity.

[4. LookingForGroup] [Falkrigina]: shut the h**l up
[4. LookingForGroup] [Novite]: omfg, guys, by trying to be funny with “reported’
[4. LookingForGroup] [Jerc]: reported -50dkp
[4. LookingForGroup] [Kammie]: d*mn it
[4. LookingForGroup] [Onestrike]: LOL
[4. LookingForGroup] [Creamcorn]: petmetoo reported for asking to be petin the LFG CHANNEL! OMG

It’s like there’s now a global bunch of 13 year old AOL users:

[4. LookingForGroup] [Nito]: u didn’t say that?
[4. LookingForGroup] [Sublivien]: dude I just looked in the mirror and realized my p***s was as small as my sisters
[4. LookingForGroup] [Twisteddeath]: >.>
[4. LookingForGroupj [Furay]: what the h**l

It just keeps getting worse, with racism for fun:

[4. LookingForGroup] [Bootycall]: what do you call a black man flying an airplane?
[4. LookingForGroup] [Erituj: how many emos does it lake to screw in a lightbulb
[4. LookingForGroup] [Chozin]: a pilot
[4. LookingForGroup] [Bootycall]: a pilot, you freaking racists
[4. LookingForGroup] [Skorne]: you couldnt, they pussied out

Finally, a discussion of religion–immature style:

[4. LookingForGroup] [Tasheey]: lol
[4. LookingForGroup] [Quierodinero]: passive detect traps
[4. LookingForGroup] [Eritu]: no jesus
[4. LookingForGroup] [Eritu]: invented blink
[4. LookingForGroup] [Adroadus]: LF tank fro ZF and v/e go
[4. LookingForGroup] [Eritu]: and vanish
[4. LookingForGroup] [Moopless]: im inviting jesus to my birthday party

All considered, I strongly recommend either including intelligent police bots on the global channel(s), or removing them and going back to the old system.

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Blizzard just released the Warcraft III 1.20e patch for Battle.net, which means that everyone playing using no-cd versions of 1.20d has been scrambling to find the latest patch, crack, or nocd. Fortunately for you, I’m going to mirror it here, along with instructions on how to upgrade to the latest version:

1. Find your Warcraft III directory, usually C:\Program Files\Warcraft III
2. Rename the 1.20d cracked exe war3.exe to war3-d-old.exe
3. Rename the old 1.20d non-cracked exe war3.120d to war3.exe
4. Download the Blizzard 1.20e patch and install it
5. Download the 1.20e nocd and install it

At this point, you should now be able to play Warcraft III on the Battle.net servers without using a cd. You’ll still need a valid serial number, though, which means you’ve already bought the game. This is just a convenience for us lazy gamers who want to dota without sticking in the Frozen Throne cd every time.

The infamous Kevin Poulson writes for Wired magazine how a simple traceroute can indicate if ATT is wiretapping your packets.