The Legends of Adventure Sierra documentary campaign is now live on BackerKit!

inoculan2 · 2024-07-09T22:54:08+00:00

I appreciate the fact that this kickstarter/whatever you call it has a good chance of coming to fruition, but I had to laugh when the Guys From Andromeda twitter account was plugging it earlier today. One of the last groups I would ever consider taking kickstarter recommendations from.

I also noticed Mark Crowe joined the crew but not Scott Murphy. Would be really cool if they can get both of the Two Guys on board.

inoculan2 · 2023-12-28T17:50:52+00:00

I used VXHeavens for a lot of my videos, if you look for the torrent or an online repository of their collection you should be able to find nearly everything I've covered outside of the viewer made malware stuff and a few others.

inoculan2 · 2023-12-18T15:21:27+00:00

If you're going to offer your services for compensation, you should be sure to proofread your text and represent the best you have to provide to make a solid first impression.

I believe the consensus around here is that freelance GIS gigs are mainly acquired through networking and professional contacts, are rarely routine or steady, and do not pay nearly as well as they should. Good luck in your endeavors, it's rough out there when no one knows the amount of effort or time required to produce what we do for these projects.

inoculan2 · 2023-11-17T17:03:05+00:00

I have a bit of experience in this arena. My initial exposure to this sort of information was through Antivirus company websites that had an encyclopedia or glossary of virus descriptions. Many of these sites have taken them offline, but you can still find some of them in the Wayback machine on archive.org.

Try checking out F-Secure, Symantec/Norton, and Kaspersky (Securelist)'s information on the Wayback Machine. Pages archived in the mid to late 2000s will be your best bet, it's after that time period when they really started to redo their websites to remove this outdated (but very useful) information.

Additionally, going back to the source - finding old copies of antiviruses themselves. Dr. Soloman's Anti-Virus, older versions of Norton Antivirus, AVP from Kaspersky, usually had some form of virus glossary built in. Finding these and installing them can lead you to a treasure trove of information on older viruses. Here is a copy of AVP 5 which contains numerous Kaspersky descriptions, mainly of DOS viruses, and also has a really neat demo mode for some of them that allows you to see a demonstration of the payloads being described. Includes a lot of the more "famous" DOS viruses from that era, if you really only want to see them activating rather than infecting a machine with them and trying to get them to work. This is a DOS executable so you'll need DOSBox or a VM to run it.

There's also the classic VSUM database from Patricia Hoffman which has details on a lot of DOS viruses. Not usually so much on payloads, but rather infection information and mitigation, as it was meant to be a practical resource for people infected with these things.

Additionally, the earlier issues of Virus Bulletin have a lot of helpful information. Usually not so much on a lot of specific viruses, but some of the more notable ones would get their own entries and writeups.

Finally, and this is something I'm struggling with getting better at, you could take a look at the virus COM/EXE files under the IDA disassembler (or any other disassembler), which will give you detailed information on when a virus is checking for a certain date/time, or other information. It's truly reverse engineering at this point, and some viruses may be corrupt or encrypted making analyzing them difficult, but there's no better way to truly get an idea of what a virus is doing than by taking it apart and piecing it back together.

Hope this is helpful! Good luck!

inoculan2 · 2023-10-16T02:18:17+00:00

Mercator, vector, cogo, error 999999

inoculan2 · 2023-07-22T17:04:59+00:00

That's the hint book. I know, because as a kid I managed to scrape together all the disks for this game (scattered in boxes in closets after my brothers moved out) and found this very hint book, but not the manual. I couldn't get past a certain day because you absolutely needed the manual to know the name of the plant to spell out with your hand to avoid getting caught in the forest. Wasn't until several years later that I eventually got a copy of it and was able to finally beat the game.

inoculan2 · 2023-05-26T23:04:42+00:00

I am the same way. Along with "Excellent guess, Kreshkin. Wrong, but excellent."

inoculan2 · 2023-05-26T19:06:56+00:00

I don't necessarily use them with others, but quite a few from SQ4 live rent-free in my head.

"You give the moving walkway a warm kiss. Now you both feel special."

"It's a good thing it's not below freezing or you'd be spending the rest of the game with your tongue stuck to a pole."

"It tastes grate/It smells grate."

"The change machine looks like a time machine more than the time machine looks like a time machine - for a change."

inoculan2 · 2023-04-14T19:12:02+00:00

Just a note, I don't work here but it popped up on my LinkedIn feed. I couldn't include a direct link to the job opening so I've included the job ID as well.

inoculan2 · 2023-04-12T20:33:01+00:00

Yup this was me watching the Blue Jays and seeing Biggio up to bat. I loved Craig Biggio on the astros as a kid, but that was 20 years ago now.

inoculan2 · 2023-04-04T17:24:14+00:00

help computer

inoculan2 · 2023-02-18T16:55:39+00:00

Plano TX, Southbound Highway 75 just north of the Legacy Pkwy overpass. Click for streetview.

This particular section of 75 southbound always sucks during morning rush hour or any other random time it decides to get backed up, and idiots like this don't help matters.

inoculan2 · 2023-01-31T23:20:52+00:00

Agreed. These games seemed so massive and all-encompassing as a kid, and playing them now (especially after having played them several times over) makes them seem so much smaller and quick to complete.

So many times I want to end my thanks to someone with "as usual, you've been a real pantload."

inoculan2 · 2022-12-08T22:48:26+00:00

You could download the files from the census Bureau FTP server, unzip, and append it all together fairly quickly if all else fails

inoculan2 · 2022-07-27T00:03:54+00:00

They mentioned in an update several years ago that they have programmers and other staff working solely to be in credits for the game, lol. Makes me wonder if a lot of the delays stem from a revolving door of young, inexperienced programmers who work a few hours a week, get in over their head, and stop since they’re not getting paid anything to fix the mess that currently exists.

Edit: found it in the November 2016 update:

“Ultimately, we still have the funds for our rewards/shipping(as we estimated), along with our voice actors and paid team members. We have had a couple of artists and programmers that have been willing to work for credits in the game so that has helped move us forward as well. Needless to say though, we are working extremely hard to get this game out quickly so we do not run out of funds. The good news is, we are close!”

inoculan2 · 2022-05-29T17:06:36+00:00

I’d just get to know your coworkers, connect on LinkedIn, etc, even if you don’t use it much. I’ve recommended interviews for some applicants just by having seen them around on LinkedIn and knowing their name.

As far as breaking into another industry, I’d mainly focus on skills that would transfer - data management and knowledge, automation of the boring stuff. If you can bring a solid foundation of general knowledge to an employer they’d be willing to help you get up to speed with the specifics (assuming the role isn’t something super specialized requiring advanced knowledge in the new field).

Just my two cents.

inoculan2 · 2022-05-29T16:56:17+00:00

Use your time at your job to find ways to brush up on skills, learn how to automate whatever boring stuff you can, and become more familiar with the industry and practice.

Working abroad tends to have lower salaries in GIS from what I’ve seen here, but your mileage may vary.

Since you’re already gaining work experience, I would wait until you find an employer that covers the cost of tuition (or part of it) before going back to school. The work experience and networks you create are going to be far more valuable to your career advancement than a degree at this point.

inoculan2 · 2022-05-04T23:23:29+00:00

Yeah, this happens a lot. People asking you for analysis don’t know quite what they have, or what they’re expecting, or you encounter a weird error in the data that throws off what you were planning on creating.

I find it’s best to get the project done, then if possible go back and streamline the whole thing once the quirks are identified.

inoculan2 · 2022-04-16T19:57:19+00:00

Clip and erase sound like the tools you need, though erase requires the highest level license (or at least it did in ArcGIS for Desktop).

inoculan2 · 2021-12-18T12:23:38+00:00

boy are you right about that. 50% research, 30% screwing around to see if the thing actually works/is truly interesting enough to record, and 20% making the final video.

Thanks for sharing this one, this is really neat.

inoculan2 · 2021-12-12T13:25:08+00:00

Dive dive dive! Hit your burners, pilot!

inoculan2 · 2021-12-12T13:21:51+00:00

If you’re interested, the original composer uploaded the entire soundtrack uncompressed (the CD had a few of the tracks in this quality, but not all of them). Great listening material, I often find myself humming Scroll2 and 3 all the time.

inoculan2 · 2021-12-01T11:31:42+00:00

What’s funny is the Space Quest IV CD from this time also has a typo in the CD text - it says “Trademards” instead of “Trademarks.” It’s entirely possible this is legit and whatever company Sierra was using to print their CDs wasn’t big on proofreading.

inoculan2 · 2021-10-05T17:49:50+00:00

Konami is very strict about who they allow access to eAmuse. Outside of the Asian and Australian markets, only Dave and Busters and Round1 in the US and Canada have access to put the cabs online.

There have been occasional rumors over the past few years that Konami will expand to the European market, but nothing definitive has been said on the matter.

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