The Linux Blog

I’m sick and tired of the majority of people talking about the Steam server status.

Many people are talking about a ‘drop’ on the bandwidth numbers right before a patch is released. This is nonsense. There is NO connection between bandwidth and when VALVe decides to release a patch. The only way there would be is if VALVe shut the servers down before applying the patch, which they do not do.

What do you think people will do? Nobody knows when a patch will come out for a game, so what do they do? They get some kind of ’sign’ from the all-knowing Gabe Newell (founder of VALVe)? Sure, let’s believe that, so they all sign off of steam just to make the bandwidth page register a dip in the amount of bandwidth. Insane.

Thanks, no connection, move along. Rant alert. Stupid community (well, in some aspects).

Apparently, I have the John C. Dvorak disease. (he uses a lot of bold when his articles are printed in PC Magazine)

Previously, I posted about Halo 2 being overhyped.

Now, I’m posting the other side. Half-Life 2 was overhyped by some.

This isn’t in the same way as Halo 2, which was mainly the complaints as follow. The game engine was horribly optimized for the computer. You can’t get the graphics engine to render anything anywhere near 30fps for anything on the source engine at full details.

The way that Half-Life 2 was overhyped was simple. People expected it to be twice as good as the next best game out there (assuming it’s the best game out there, which it is to me). People saw the E3 2004 (or 2003, not as impressive, but close) videos. They followed all the rumors (wow, what a ride). They stayed up all night (3AM EST) just to play the game after wiping their hard drive clean, defragging, jumped 2 and 1/2 times, screamed a high F#, and tapping the letters “WOOT OMG OMG OMG” 3 times.

Mainly, the problem with the E3 2004 videos being released was that they are no more and no less than proof of concept videos. There are no guarantees that anything you see in them (and they weren’t meant to be publicized the way they were), not even the physics or the gun the player was using. People became disappointed when a few scenes never happened in the game.

The leak of the beta version was a fall for many, as they downloaded the workable compiled version and played it. They spoiled much of the story, thought it was supposed to be different, etc.

Many rumors were abroad about the ending, when it would be released, what guns you would have (according to the beta; from what I hear, some were added and some removed), what levels you would play (ditto), and more nonsense of the such.

People were upset that the game didn’t finish off the series (actually, not many people were, but this is yet another point). Hopefully, they won’t fool around and will get right to work on Half-Life 3, which many people are already talking about.

Basically, the more you followed Half-Life 2 and the ups and downs, the more you were disappointed. Personally, I followed it closely, but not too close. I have yet to finish the game, but it’s the best FPS (First Person Shooter) game I’ve ever played. I’m loving every minute of it.

Several major Linux vendors have warned they are vulnerable to four flaws in a widely used IMAP e-mail server from Carnegie Mellon University’s Cyrus Electronic Mail Project. The flaws could allow an attacker to take over a server.

Among the Linux vendors issuing patches for the Cyrus IMAP server are MandrakeSoft, Gentoo and Debian. IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) is one of the most popular standards for accessing e-mail, and the Cyrus software is designed for use by small to large enterprises.

Full Article.

This is just one reminder that there are vunerabilities in all operating systems, not just Windows.