Well, that's new.

Here I was, just trying to get rid of the annoying thing that pops up, disables scrolling, and tells me to stop using an ad-blocker.

Today is certainly a "TIL" day for me.

I found out two cool things:
1. That you can mute a tab's sound in Chrome by clicking the little speaker icon in the tab with the below option enabled.
chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting
2. Exactly how cable induction works, why looping cables (cable management) is bad, and how best to cable-manage while still shielding your data.

At 5/5/17 12:16 AM, egg82 wrote: Today is certainly a "TIL" day for me.

I found out two cool things:
1. That you can mute a tab's sound in Chrome by clicking the little speaker icon in the tab with the below option enabled.
chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting

It's enabled by default in Opera, fwiw.

At 5/7/17 07:12 AM, Gimmick wrote:

At 5/5/17 12:16 AM, egg82 wrote: Today is certainly a "TIL" day for me.

I found out two cool things:
1. That you can mute a tab's sound in Chrome by clicking the little speaker icon in the tab with the below option enabled.
chrome://flags/#enable-tab-audio-muting

It's enabled by default in Opera, fwiw.

Same with Firefox.

You know what I totally and seriously love about working on inherited projects? Having to deal with garbage like this. I'm hoping the client will authorise the cost to rewrite the whole thing because it's in dire need of it.

And, yes, the pickup_date and pickup_time columns—and all other columns storing a point in time—are UNIX epochs, because of course. (Kill me.)

At 5/8/17 05:55 PM, Diki wrote: You know what I totally and seriously love about working on inherited projects?

"Well there's your problem"- you, probably.

At 5/8/17 06:17 PM, MSGhero wrote:

At 5/8/17 05:55 PM, Diki wrote: You know what I totally and seriously love about working on inherited projects?

"Well there's your problem"- you, probably.

Certainly doesn't help, but it's what I get paid to write so I don't have a lot of choice. Usually I just work on projects I wrote myself, which makes the language tolerable, but sometimes I have to work with other people's code or with WordPress and they're both equally terrible. (Seriously, WordPress is fucking horrible.)

I'd rather get paid to write Python or Ruby, but whattya gonna do?

Wonder if this affects anything in terms of Flash/Adobe or including MP3s in non-flash exports.

At 5/11/17 10:04 PM, MSGhero wrote: Wonder if this affects anything in terms of Flash/Adobe or including MP3s in non-flash exports.

they'll still be a demand for mp3 support in most programs, since anyone scouring the internet for a sound will either come across an mp3 or a wav. I've never once heard of an AAC.

At 5/12/17 12:43 AM, GeoKureli wrote: they'll still be a demand for mp3 support in most programs, since anyone scouring the internet for a sound will either come across an mp3 or a wav. I've never once heard of an AAC.

I meant legally, since it's technically illegal to use MP3s without a license, which Adobe provides for all flash content.

At 5/12/17 01:09 PM, MSGhero wrote:
I meant legally, since it's technically illegal to use MP3s without a license, which Adobe provides for all flash content.

I thought this all came about because the copyright for mp3 expired this month

Edit: Patents expired, last one will expire at the end of the year. I'm a complete doofus with legal matters, but that means no licensing fee, right?

Maybe the whole article is a way to publicize the new format they want to license

At 5/12/17 07:22 PM, GeoKureli wrote: Edit: Patents expired, last one will expire at the end of the year. I'm a complete doofus with legal matters, but that means no licensing fee, right?

Means anyone can use the patent without fear of being sued. So, yes, means free MP3 forever now.

1) This is kinda late, since we have OGG/VORBIS now and damned-near every library supports it. But sure, why not I guess?
2) Did anyone read CloudFlare's battle with a patent troll? Oh, this is gonna be good. They really picked the wrong target. CF's gonna try to gut them of every patent they own.

At 5/12/17 07:22 PM, GeoKureli wrote: Maybe the whole article is a way to publicize the new format they want to license

I mean, AAC is already Apple's default lossy audio file type. Pretty sure if you get something off iTunes, it's AAC. Those are also protected with some kind of DRM thing.

Finally resetting my laptop. There's some massive ransomware attack that probably won't affect me, but I'm actually done all school things now and have time to do this. If I can't install windows updates after this, I swear...

At 5/12/17 10:15 PM, MSGhero wrote: Finally resetting my laptop. There's some massive ransomware attack that probably won't affect me, but I'm actually done all school things now and have time to do this. If I can't install windows updates after this, I swear...

What the fuck is this. I can't even reset my PC.

At 5/12/17 10:25 PM, MSGhero wrote: What the fuck is this.

This is Windows: a truly wonderful experience.

P.S. Install Linux.

At 5/12/17 07:31 PM, egg82 wrote:

At 5/12/17 07:22 PM, GeoKureli wrote: Edit: Patents expired, last one will expire at the end of the year. I'm a complete doofus with legal matters, but that means no licensing fee, right?

Means anyone can use the patent without fear of being sued. So, yes, means free MP3 forever now.

1) This is kinda late, since we have OGG/VORBIS now and damned-near every library supports it. But sure, why not I guess?

The last time I encountered an OGG file that wasn't being ironic was in 2008. Wasn't the Vorbis project plagued with roadblocks too? Last I heard it was inferior to MP3, and its video codec was inferior to MP4. Seemed like the only thing going for it was that it was open source.

@MSGHero: How did that happen? Did it happen with the windows reset PC in the Settings menu, or when you inserted the disk?

Speaking of windows, I recently got a computer preloaded with windows 8 (ugh). Since it's activated by the OEM, I can't upgrade to 8.1. I can't even install another OS, however, because get this - the boot order is fucked (probably by the OEM?), and every time I try to access the BIOS (mobo doesn't support UEFI) the menu saying so (Advanced Startup? pssh) does not have the "Access UEFI Firmware" settings.

Furthermore, since I don't have a PS/2 keyboard (only a USB one) I can't access the BIOS at startup (then again, I can't see any display like "Press F2 to open bios settings" at startup, either..), so I can't even install another operating system. My only hope is to boot off a live cd (got that working through BIOS extender, but USB booting is a crapshoot, and I don't have windows disks) of Puppy linux (because that's the only operating system that I have that will fit in a CD) and formatting the C: drive so that when I start up the computer it won't find an OS and will ask to insert bootable media (at which point I can finally boot using USB)

That, or I pull out the CMOS and hope it resets the BIOS / boot order settings at the least (not that I know what the defaults are, anyways), although I'm a bit squeamish about ESD (even though it's more like the boogeyman of electronics)

At 5/12/17 11:29 PM, Gimmick wrote:

OGGs are the recommended audio filetype for OpenFL projects, minus flash because it can't automatically use them, and minus Safari browser which can't play them (I think).

@MSGHero: How did that happen? Did it happen with the windows reset PC in the Settings menu, or when you inserted the disk?

I don't have a disk or USB (comp came with Win10). It was after resetting from Settings. The Media Creation tool also failed last time I tried. Now I'm 90% of the way through downloading a fresh copy of Win10 with the Refresh Windows Tool.

and 10% of the way to getting another error and crying
and one ep into Master of None s2

At 5/13/17 12:03 AM, MSGhero wrote:

@MSGHero: How did that happen? Did it happen with the windows reset PC in the Settings menu, or when you inserted the disk?

I don't have a disk or USB (comp came with Win10). It was after resetting from Settings. The Media Creation tool also failed last time I tried. Now I'm 90% of the way through downloading a fresh copy of Win10 with the Refresh Windows Tool.

Didn't work, obviously. I just tried a ton of things, including uninstalling VPN and EMET, neither of which I need anymore, plus like 30 mins of command line stuff from Microsoft's site. Gonna try that out on the most recent update, but I'm not holding my breath.

Good news is that Dell let me have a copy of OEM Win10, so when this update fails, I can recover from a probably not fucked version.

At 5/13/17 03:35 AM, MSGhero wrote: Good news is that Dell let me have a copy of OEM Win10, so when this update fails, I can recover from a probably not fucked version.

Blast the entire drive with zeroes and re-install a clean copy. Boot a Linux USB and zero your entire drive out, including GPT (MBR is so last-gen). The whole thing. Then boot a Windows install USB and start again. If you linked your original copy of Win10 to your MS account you shouldn't have issues with licencing on your new copy once you log in again.

Once all that's done, install updates (software and firmware), drivers, & MBAM before anything else. Have a good weekend!

At 5/12/17 11:29 PM, Gimmick wrote: The last time I encountered an OGG file that wasn't being ironic was in 2008. Wasn't the Vorbis project plagued with roadblocks too? Last I heard it was inferior to MP3, and its video codec was inferior to MP4. Seemed like the only thing going for it was that it was open source.

this might help some. You can also use FLAC with OGG, so you've really got your bases covered in terms of "compression like MP3" or "losslessness" - take your pick, really.

My laptop is actually possessed. I can't install Linux, and the "data wipe" BIOS option along with clearing TPM did nothing.

Good thing @egg82 is an exorcist.

At 5/14/17 05:01 PM, MSGhero wrote: Good thing @egg82 is an exorcist.

BEGONE, DEMONS!
BY THE POWER VESTED IN ME BY GATES HIMSELF, I SAY BEGONE!

Edit: Seriously, though. Your laptop does NOT like running Linux. Good thing diskpart is adequate enough for SSDs.

Alrighty, here's a story for those who were out all weekend and have no idea what in the world just happened (and as of a few hours ago is happening again, but we'll get to that in a sec)

Now I normally wouldn't even be following this story much beyond "yeah, this happened. Again." but there's a few particular bits and moments that very much interested me. So here I am. Also, my days and times may be slightly off. I've been following this story off and on all weekend.

Out story being on a Friday afternoon. I'm in the middle of calling professors across the country to push out new company-approved laptops and reading Reddit between calls. After a quick refresh of my home screen I see a new post with some title like "Ransomware sweeping across the globe" - thinking this was a sensationalist piece with little value (I mean, they mostly are) I skip it and find a new post on r/talesfromtechsupport. Ooh, goody!

Fast-forward a few hours. As I'm heading back from work I once again hop on Reddit and see what's going on. A few more pieces about this malware, so I figure "eh, why not?" and dig into one a bit. Again, looks pretty sensationalist and I wasn't interested in overblown facts in an article telling me everything I already knew. Closed, and found a few new posts on r/gaming and r/talesfromretail.

It wasn't until Saturday morning that I really noticed something was up. After reading Twitter and asking my Google Home what was going on in the world, I got some interesting news. Apparently the ransomware variant I had quickly checked up on and forgotten about had made a big splash. Bigger than usual. I decide to do a little more digging since I thought this particular variant was pretty par-for-the-course stuff.

So, here's the thing; I was right. This strain of malware was very standard and didn't really bear anything unusual. Uses "zero-day" exploit? Check. Infecting a ton of PCs? Check. Standard encryption and warning screen? Check. Asking for a variant amount of money based on factors present on the internal network? Check. AV evasion? Triple-check.

Except for one little thing that really bugged me. This malware contained a kill-switch in the form of a domain. Basically, this malware had a dropper (all of them do) that first checks to see if a domain gives a response. If it does, it shuts down immediately and nothing further happens. If it doesn't, it continues on and starts encrypting files. Again, this wouldn't have bugged me so much except for the fact that everything else was perfect. Everything. It would have been unbreakable and damn-near impossible to stop except for that one VERY BIG flaw.

A researcher by the name of MalwareTech discovered this domain and immediately bought it, not knowing what would happen. This is standard procedure for him in an attempt to track infections. This is the part of the story, I think, that made the whole thing really explode. Also, poor guy has now had to do a lot of diversion on his domain, Twitter, and e-mail accounts and has also been unintentionally doxed by the media. Ouch.

So this all raises a few questions. Clearly, the makers of this malware knew exactly what they were doing and how to do it. Were they being careless or was this simply a test? Either way, we're clear of it for now. It's only a matter of time before a new variant of this rolls around without the kill-switch, though..

Sunday morning rolls around with lots more fanfare but no more real news of this ransomware. It looks dead, and thank MT for it. Sunday afternoon, however, is a very different story. All of a sudden pings start coming up about a new variant that uses the same code and the same dropper minus the killswitch. Welp. Fuck.

So, here's the rundown on how this thing works. Prepare for hell on Monday if you're one of the poor souls without patches.
It uses an exploit developed by the NSA a month or so prior called ETERNALBLUE (this exploit just got a Metasploit module named MS17-010)
ETERNALBLUE is an exploit targeted at SMB1 and is effective on all Windows systems that use it, including Win 10 up to some security patches (again, a month or so ago)
Also, yeah, I was wrong about the exploits earlier not affecting Win 10. Looks like at least one did, but researchers were using machines that were too up-to-date because MS couldn't put out a security bulletin on the bug due to an NSA gag-order.

Once you've got the red warning screen, it's game over and your files are already gone. I hope you either have working backups or a lot of money.

Have a happy Monday!

At 5/13/17 12:44 PM, egg82 wrote: this might help some. You can also use FLAC with OGG, so you've really got your bases covered in terms of "compression like MP3" or "losslessness" - take your pick, really.

Hmm, didn't know that.

At 5/12/17 11:29 PM, Gimmick wrote: The last time I encountered an OGG file that wasn't being ironic was in 2008. Wasn't the Vorbis project plagued with roadblocks too? Last I heard it was inferior to MP3, and its video codec was inferior to MP4. Seemed like the only thing going for it was that it was open source.

pretty much literally every game uses ogg for music, its widely supported in game engines and audio engines and has good open source support for loading it if you wanted to use something else.

also doesn't have padding at the end like mp3 does so it loops perfectly without any extra work

At 5/16/17 12:14 AM, Glaiel-Gamer wrote: pretty much literally every game uses ogg for music, its widely supported in game engines and audio engines and has good open source support for loading it if you wanted to use something else.

Hmm, I'll have to check a few game directory files then.

also doesn't have padding at the end like mp3 does so it loops perfectly without any extra work

That's nice to know...does that mean I can replay them smoothly in VLC? (I know foobar2000 can replay almost all media smoothly, but can't install it right now)

Can't let these kids and their devlogs show me up. Finally wrote something since I finally have free time again http://msghero.newgrounds.com/news/post/986889

Free time is nice time

At 5/22/17 02:07 AM, MSGhero wrote: Can't let these kids and their devlogs show me up. Finally wrote something since I finally have free time again http://msghero.newgrounds.com/news/post/986889

Free time is nice time

Yeah, no kidding. Makes me want to do a write-up on something, but the only things I got currently are the two MC mods and my framework.

I assume that means your PC's fixed? :D?

At 5/22/17 02:33 AM, egg82 wrote: I assume that means your PC's fixed? :D?

SFC caught something after I updated my BIOS, haven't had an issue in the past 24 hours or so...

What are the considerations for putting a game demo on some kind of "early access" platform for a cheaper price? Like itch.io as opposed to Steam Early Access.

Should it be feature-complete and just lacking content? Should the discount be related to how complete the game is?

cc @Glaiel-Gamer which I spelled correctly on the first go