I thought the IMSI unlock saga is done and dusted but apparently there are more to it. All credit goes to Loktar_Sun from weiphone.com who pursued an earlier lead that many, yours truly included, have gave up as a viable exploit.
What do you need: A jailbroken iPhone that can be activated in iTunes (that is, not officially blacklisted), a computer with the latest iTunes installed and working internet connection. You will also need to know the carrier that your iPhone is locked to.
1. Step one: Install Sam Bingner's SAM (Subscriber Artificial Module) package. I recommend that you get it from repo.bingner.com since older versions have a different interface and may not work for this purpose.
2. Enter SAM by either going through the settings menu or find the SAMPrefs icon on your springboard. You will need to have the SIM card you intend to use in your phone.
3. Go to utilities and select "De-Activate iPhone", your ActivationState under "More Information" should now be "Unactivated"
4. With SAM enabled, choose "By Country and Carrier" in "Method"; find your carrier, for some carriers operating more than one Carrier ID you may need to select "SIM ID"; easy to tell since iTunes will not activate if the wrong IMSI is selected.
5. Go to More Information", copy or write down the IMSI in "SAM Details", then tap "Spoof Real SIM to SAM".
6. Go back to the main SAM screen and change your "Method" to manual. Paste or enter the IMSI string we saved in Step 5.
7. Connect your iPhone to your computer and allow iTunes to do its job (namely re-activating your phone), double click "Phone Number" parameter at the main device screen and make sure that the ICCID matches that of your SIM card. If not you need to start over from Step 1.
8. Unplug your phone, close iTunes.
9. Disable SAM. The source article says to uninstall SAM and delete your lockdownd folders; it's unnecessary.
10. Connect your phone to iTunes again, you should get an error saying that your phone cannot be activated. This is normal. Just close iTunes and open it again.
11. You should see signal bars in a short time, congratulations.
12. Push notifications may stop working after this procedure but can be easily restored with "clear push" utility in SAM followed by connecting to iTunes.
Your phone will work normally with your SIM card and that SIM card ONLY since we have tricked iTunes to think that ICCID is one of the intended carrier's. The phone can be rebooted and connected to iTunes freely without losing the "unlock", at least for now.
Since it does not involve emergency numbers or IMSI spoofing it will not have any of the issues associated with SIM interposers. Tested working on iOS 5.01 but should work with tethered 5.1 too.
In case you were not a huge follower of ice hockey (not that I know anything about it), Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup final at home, widespread rioting ensures.
Very considerate self-censorship
Worthy of the Pulitzer Award (In case you did not get the joke, click here)
Note to myself: So this is how you set a car on fire
Did you spot the ginge? Did you?
Duck and cover? Nah, a real anarchist throw them back
...........................................
Have not checked 4chan yet, but this feels like instant meme material, I offer my own image macro below:
Disclaimer: I am not associated in any way with the manufacturers and/or resellers of the products mentioned here. A lot of technical information has been (overly) simplified to facilitate understanding however I try to keep them as accurate as possible. The Gevey device in concern has just began shipping earlier this week, I have had very limited time with it so consider all information as preliminary and expect frequent updates/corrections. Your feedback and inputs are most appreciated, tweet @DillADH
For much of the last two years time, even the manufacturer of these SIM hack products acknowledge that their product is no longer needed; so it was quite a surprise when Gevey announced that they have something that will unlock the iPhone 4. Contrary to conspiracy theories, they withheld onto the product because:
Initial production cost is high, they risk losing a lot of their investment should the dev team come up with a software unlock that does the same job if not better, before they were able to recover their cost.
The exploit they used is not without serious problems, hence they were reluctant to produce it until there seems to be be no alternatives coming for a while.
The exploit they used is very simple, provided you have the tools and skill, details to follow...
I have made a mistake earlier by calling it TurboSIM and it is not. @MuscleNerd reminded me of the correct term "SIM interposer", since it sits electrically between the SIM card and baseband hardware to perform a classic Man-in-the-middle Attack.
How did It Work?
SIM card holds many different types of information, but the part most involved with carrier lock is the IMSI number, which is a unique code that corresponds to your account in the mobile carrier's database.
A sample IMSI might look like this
310 150 987654321
The first two segments are known as Mobile Country Code (MCC) and Mobile Network Code (MNC) respectively, and in the example above the IMSI indicate the SIM is from USA (310) AT&T (150).
When the iPhone baseband is loaded into memory, it checks the MCC and MNC against its own network lock state stored in the seczone. If the combination is allowed, the cell radio is activated and vice versa.
The earliest iPhone baseband revisions only check IMSI twice following a restart, therefore it is very easy to spoof information in order to bypass the check. Nevertheless, the baseband was soon updated to validate SIM more aggressively and the method no longer works.
The Long Con
To guard against eavesdropping that plagued pre-GSM cellular networks, the initial connection to a network does not only involve IMSI, but a 4-byte TMSI to identify each handset before IMSI is sent. The base station recognises the IMSI as one of their users and replies with a nonce (RAND) to the handset, where is signed with a 128bit key (Ki, stored encrypted on the SIM) and sent back. The network checks the string against their own result using the same RAND and Ki and allows the device to register if the two value matches.
You see, the IMSI is only sent once and never directly involved with authentication; as long as your key is valid, you will be able to get service. This is exactly what the various SIM hacks where a fake IMSI is sent along with the correct key. The IMSI is redirected to another network and lost, In our case, the IMSI is invalid but some network proceed to the next step anyway - I will explain this in detail later.
Demise
The result of SIM hacks has always been erratic since the outcome depends on the implementation of the hack as well as the policies of the network; and people were inundated with a long list of issues and makeshift solutions. e.g. Cellular data may and may not work depending on the chemistry; a common remedy is to periodically put the hacked SIM into an unlocked "nanny" phone to "keep the TMSI fresh".
The use of SIM hacks fell sharply after iOS 2.2.1 update where the new baseband were made aware of the method and reject dodgy exploitable IMSIs, even the better designed interposers suffered frequent failures. It is about the same time software unlocks were developed and it pushed SIM hacks further into disuse. However the technology has been kept alive since a number of GSM handsets, mainly those coming from Japan, remains vulnerable.
Partial Revival
Apparently somebody figured out that while the i4 baseband has been patched to prevent test IMSI from working, it is still possible to force activate the baseband using the emergency dialer.
After that, it is relatively the same trick all over again. Let's see what it does at each step.
You will need to use the SIM tray supplied and file your MicroSIM slightly to accommodate the EEPROM chip.
Installing the SIM + gevey.
The phone will search for signal, comes up with no service and finally settling on this "one bar" icon. At this stage the sim interposer is passing the parameters from the SIM as is.Earlier hacks required the fake IMSI to be programmed manually however this device is obviously capable of rapidly cycling a list of IMSI until an accepted MCC/MNC combination is found. pre-programmed with an exploitable IMSI. It may also spoof ICCID since the iOS is known to occasionally check that.
Dial 112 and hang up after the call is connected. The emergency call overrides the network lock and activates the cell radio. The network issues a TMSI for your real IMSI.
Toggle flight mode On/Off. Once the interposer senses flight mode, it transiently blocks electrical connection between the phone and the SIM (hence it will show "No SIM card installed") before sending spoofed IMSI. The BB allows the SIM and attempts to connect to network. What exactly happens is not too clear but apparently the interposer ROM block electrical connection to prevent the BB from detecting the fake IMSI.
The signal bars appear, we are safe:-) The network is able to register you again because the TMSI you obtained earlier is still valid, and the IMSI is not checked again. That is after the network ignored the fake IMSI (which the phone has no knowledge of) but allowed the SIM onboard because it is able to validate that.
Why 112?
112 had a long history as an emergency number for practical reasons; back then when the GSM standard was being drafted in Europe, 112 was chosen to be the universal emergency number to call that can be called from any GSM phone, free of charge, with or without a SIM card on any compliant network.
However long before GSM service was established, 112 has been used to report landline faults in China; the coincidence made it unsuitable as a true emergency number. The network still connects 112 as an unbilled emergency call, only to play an automated message in both Chinese and English informing callers of the correct emergency numbers to dial; the call is never redirected.
What does it mean to unlockers?
It works if A.your network handles 112 calls properly according to the GSM standard; B.they are tolerant to TSMI spoofing lax on TMSI management and does not actively validate your IMSI again for incoming calls.
Unlike its ancestors, the i4 SIM interposer is not a drop-in-and-forget device. The exact precedure must be followed everytime the device restart, lose reception for an extended period of time or move to another PLMN. In all situations the TMSI expires and has to be obtained again. Theoretically it is possible for a daemon to automate the process similar to ZeroG, but that only makes thing more convoluted. Theoretically it is possible to reproduce the same behavior by physically switching your SIM card while flight mode is on.
It is, without question, unethical or downright illegal to use the technique anywhere 112 is a legitmate emergency number. Use the exploit at your own risk/responsibility and tough luck if you get into trouble with the law.
All firmware/baseband combinations for the i4 up to iOS 4.3 4.3.1 are vulnerable, however the exploit may be patched in any future software updates or via the carrier.
SIM interposer should not harm your phone hardware, however your network could request IMEI and identify your device during the emergency call, leading to your handset getting banned. Your identity cannot be faked andit is possible that they will shut down your account.There is a reason why SIM cards remain legally the property of the service provider: you are not supposed to tamper with them without breaching contract.
Notwithstanding all the problems, SIM interposer does not cause any battery drain since it is only active transiently (at least for the gevey, some clones may use less reliable components and cause issues), nor would it cause signal loss as long as you stay in the same cell - TMSI may be reused in the neighboring one since it is only 4 bytes.
Conclusion:
An overpriced (US$50 US$70, although clones are just starting to appear), unreliable and legally questionable mod; works for some but your mileage may vary; get it if you are desperate or wait for the 40-bit 56-bit NCK hack or the eventual SW unlock by the iPhone dev team.
Okay, RC5 is finally out and working to provide untethered JB for 4.2.1 on all devices, what does this mean?
Although this had not been officially confirmed, the exploit used here is, more likely than not, the long awaited SHAtter. I am fairly sure because the JB comes with custom boot logo (and it is even animated) so it has to be an iboot/kernel level JB which is not exactly abundant.
Chronic Dev Team was going to hold onto SHAtter for as long as they can, however it has been patched in beta versions of iOS 4.3 therefore there is no longer any point to save it anymore. They were almost pushed to use it for 4.1 back in October; however limera1n was released just in time so it did not happen.
There is currently no usable exploit for 4.3 and up, however Redsnow's Monte mode should allow JB on all future versions as long as you have the shsh blobs for 4.2.1. (The essence of Monte is to insert a patched earlier kernel version at iBoot level, hence the blobs are needed by iTunes to sign the kernel and allow it to load untethered)
As for the greenpois0n software itself, it is still barely usable at the time of writing. You might remember that it took four RC revisions to get greenpois0n working as it should for 4.1; well RC5 and the latest RC5_2 are still buggy like a roach-infested hobo shed. You think geohot is the irresponsible Maverick? Greenpois0n is so crudely assembled that it did not even bother to include activation bundles, you are pretty screwed if you restored a locked phone to default before trying GP. (Solutions are available, read on)
There are plenty of tutorials out there, however I am going to provide my workflow that is least likely to have many hiccups that you might come across otherwise (mainly the issues with activation and the utterly broken Cydia loader in both versions) This also allows for offline operation in case you don't have access to data service or wifi.
Turn on your iPhone, connect it to your computer, back up everything in iTunes just in case. (nothing sould be lost unless you screwed up massively)
Close iTunes, shut down iPhone by holding the Sleep button and slide the red slider as it appears.
Run redsn0w 0.96rc8, choose the factory 4.21 firmware for your device, follow the instructions and choose "Install Cydia" when prompted. For 3Gs unlockers only: You can choose "install iPad baseband" at the same time to streamline the process.
Run redsn0w again as in step 3 however choose "boot tethered".
You should enter a fully jailbroken state, run Cydia to initialize it, check other system applications like Safari and make sure everything is working before turning the phone off again. Don't bother downloading any packages yet, we can leave this for later.
Run greenpois0n RC5, follow the instructions. Note that there is a 5 second countdown at the start for "getting ready", this can be somewhat confusing if you become used to redsn0w's DFU routines.
Keep the Home button pressed the whole time even after it says "complete", your iPhone should boot up in verbose mode in a minute, simply watch and you should be able to see the boot animation pretty soon.
The phone will turn off automatically when everything is done; simply turn on the phone again to enjoy the benefits of untethered JB.
Whenever errors come up or the phone gets stuck at any step for more than 5min in verbose mode, simply force power off by holding Sleep+Home for a few seconds and start over. It actually happens more often than thought so don't panic, just keep trying and it will work eventually. In the worst case you can always use trusty redsn0w to boot tethered and start over from step 6.
Unlike limera1n, RC5 does not contain any activation bundles. If you are having trouble getting past the activation screen, you will have to run redsn0w 0.97beta6 to hacktivate. The usual precautions of hactivating still apply and it is always better to activate using the right carrier's SIM.
RC5 is Mac-only and will fail within virtual machines or hackintosh. RC5_2 is said to work with VM at least however I still recommend getting hold of a Mac before wasting your own time due to pod2g's own impotency.
Hello again my crippled blog. Life has recently become very hectic with day jobs taking a larger cut of my time than expected and few other things keep holding me up. Exactly two week ago I pledged to update this blog more often, well...
Partly because Part 3 of my mobile network series is taking much longer as I have underestimated the amount of research. Besides, I have been distracted with the temporary ownership of an iPhone 4 for which I took the advantage of carrier subsidy to buy as a Christmas gift for my dear father.
I have had ample opportunity to fiddle with other people's iPhones before which were not all that impressive: The plastic chassis feel cheap, the screen is mediocre and iTunes is a pain to use. The iPad failed to please me the same way with its general lack in productivity features, which even MacFags do admit.
You see, the smoothness of iOS is often achieved through deception. Deliberately disabling multitasking is one thing, for Apple is a clever social engineer to make things appear better than they really are. For example, Safari on the iPhone only render the visible portion of the active tab plus a very small adjacent area to reduce the processing overhead. If you scroll too fast you will be greeted with blank areas cleverly disguised as transparency layers before the system catches up. The interface also tricks people into suspending processes rather than properly killing them, resulting in a seemingly fast launch time when the same process is called again.
However the iPhone 4 is actually quite agreeable. The slim construction of double glass panels and external antennas, despite its susceptibilities to breakage and attenuation, is quite pleasing to sight and feels substantial in your hands. The much-hyped retina screen is also pretty nice, even for someone already accustomed to a high quality screen on the Milestone. Apple have chosen the right resolution that existing apps that were smart enough to uemploy vector graphics can be scaled up without any intervention.
Taiko no Tatsujin looked so good that I almost thought it was developed natively for 960x640
The added RAM helps to make multitasking possible without sacrificing responsiveness. And the camera deserves special mention too for being exceptional. in such a small package. While I did not regret giving it away, I am looking for a locked 32GB one for entertainment. Overall, it is a glorified and augmented iPod Touch rather than a communication device, for I cannot bear the lack of physical keyboard, notification light and interchangeable batteries found on every other phone.
Contrary to conventional wisdom, the history of Apple shows clear continuity from Day 1 while Microsoft's products were often refreshed to the point that it no longer resemble their ancestors. The latest Macs still have some of the quirks of Apple II where critical system timings were taken directly from the bus clock, so binaries not complied with such systems will fail to execute.
The present iOS vs. Android race is an exact duplication of the old PC vs. Mac rivalry. Apple, by controlling the range of hardware, can effectively control the user experience, while their more open opponents must deal with all sorts of segmentation and compatibility issue.
To better explain this, let's look at a recent example. Everybody loves Angry Birds however the initial Android release was unplayable for most people. Simply because with iPhone there are only two hardware branches and one or two OS to maintain, while Android comes in at least three versions, a variety of screen resolutions and a continuum of processing power, which is something that developers, having been spoiled by the iPhone, cannot no longer cope with.
BTW, this game, along with many others, are free for Android but paid in the App Store...Hint hint.
The same issue plagues most apps ported from iOS, where it works poorly with handsets of limited hardware.
This, however, still leaves one question to be answered: Does Apple make people stupid, or are stupid people attracted to Apple?
The answer is, it does not matter, for there is a demon darker than coal trapped in every iDevice. BlendTec has proof.
Blogger Stats has not been working for some time and I have put it down to the ineptitude of Google's admins (blogspot.com has been on the downhill road since the takeover by Google), however a recent visit to the message board revealed that the function simply stopped working with Firefox, or any gecko-based browser altogether. Google Analytics, the background service that powers Blogger Stats, are also reported to have many issues with Firefox, including some reports that it does not register visits via Firefox at all. After many years of mutual support, the rift between Google and Mozilla is finally beginning to show.
The period from 2001 to 2005, following the first Browser War, are the dark days of the web with the lamentable Internet Explorer 6.0 dominating the market with only two minor update in two years. Alternatives were available however since most sites are written to support IE, the average layperson are unlikely to use it.
Fortunately the stagnation did not last forever; Firefox came out with Gecko, a brand new, standardised rendering engine, a smooth interface with tab browsing and much better security features. While its market share was never beyond the 30% mark, the real change brought along my Firefox is the renewed competition of development within the browser market.
I thought that Firefox was the forefront of web standardisation however this seems to be no longer the case, and I have similar personal experiences where a KHTML page I authored refused to be rendered correctly in Firefox; Trident renders it correctly only 50% of time however Webkit i.e. Chrome and Safari rendered it without a hitch. I ended up making static versions of the affected pages with a redirection script, which is easier said than done since every browser pretends to be Mozilla.
As for the software itself, it has become increasingly bloated and crash-prone from 3.6 onwards (hence the author is still staying on 3.5 for the remainder of its support lifetime), nor is the 4.0 beta anywhere near ready. Once the developers start to embrace Chrome en masse, there is little advantage left for Firefox.
Unlike Microsoft which has virtually bottomless resources to promote their browser, Firefox had to enter into an agreement with Google which trades search traffic for financing. While this income has allowed Mozilla to keep up the fight in the darkest of days, it is getting less secure because of the inherent conflict of interest.
Finally compared to Opera which successfully captured the niche market of mobile web browsing, Firefox was too dependent on mainstream x86 platforms; Camino was hit hard when Apple defected to x86 and was never really completed, while Fennec is still stuck in beta at the time of writing.
A losing battle from the beginning
With a sad note, I must say that Firefox is losing on all fronts and shall fade away within five years just like its Netscape fathers, not for its own wrongs but a combination of complacency, lack of focus and sheer bad luck.
In an ideal world, there should be a sensible meeting of people where standards are designed and implemented internationally.However the world is not ideal as we know it, and mobile technology was no exception.
Back in the analogue days, US first came up with AMPS, a simple FDMA (refer to part 1 in case you are getting lost here) system on 800MHz FM band; Japan and the UK was soon to follow suit, however because of regulatory limitations they had to use a different variety on the 900MHz band. Continental Europe, however, went into a frenzy of devising their own national standards, none of which turned out to be satisfactory or economically viable after a few years.
Learning from their blunders, European telcos decided to poll their effort together to create a common standard. The collaboration was initially named Groupe Spécial Mobile, however the acronym GSM soon conflated with the term Global System for Mobile. GSM was designed from the drawing pad to be fully digital, modular, and capable of operating on several different frequency bands to suit national regulations. One major point that had to be mentioned separately is the invention of the SIM card, which allows the user to move his number from one phone to another with ease.
People of the present age often take SIM cards for granted, and indeed in New Zealand over 70% of mobile subscribers are using a prepaid SIM. Nonetheless, SIM card is actually a more recent invention. Back in the days when telecommunication was though to be of natural monopoly and AT&T decided what colour is your phone going to be, it is no big surprise that phones are sold hard-wired to a certain network. In Europe, however, many countries have laws in place prohibiting blatant bundling of service with a product. With the technology standardised between countries, there is no longer any excuse to lock users in. SIM cards also allowed people to change their phones more frequently so the manufacturers are actually quite happy with it.
Hence two very different business models developed on two shores of the Atlantic: American carriers grant heavy subsidy for handsets, often offering them free of charge to lure customers into signing a lucrative contract; even GSM phones are often sold locked to a specific network, even after the initial contract has expired. In Europe, most SIM cards are prepaid and carrier locks are virtually unheard of until, you guessed right, until Steve Jobs decided to shove the American way of life down everyone's throat.
Back then when GSM was rapidly expanding, AMPS evolved very slowly. The IS-54 standard made the internal handling of calls digital to triple cell capacity, while remaining compatible to the older standard externally for a smooth transition. The subsequent IS-136 standard is fully digital, however it came too late and GSM became the effective global standard.
The future of the AMPS family was sealed when a domestic foe appeared. A start-up company in California called Qualcomm pushed digigently for their radically different and innovative CDMA technology. Unlike GSM or AMPS, CDMA does not require a frequency switch during a handover process, resulting in a much "softer" transfer that nearly always goes unnoticed and rarely dropped. While GSM and AMPS are both subject to the limitations of TDM encoding, GSM was being continually developed to minimise any issue but AMPS lacked the momentum, not to mention it was not designed to handle frequent handoffs in the first place. Two major carriers, namely Sprint and Verizon Wireless, embraced CDMA because SIM card (correct term for CDMA is actually is RIM) is not mandatory, allowing the contract-based status quo.
Subsequently AMPS went into a slow but steady decline; service has been stopped in most countries by 2006. To this date only a few networks remain, all of which are in remote regions where the upgrade cost is prohibitive.
The same pattern of change played out in most parts of the world except in Japan, where the AMPS system was simplified to become PDC, which is specialised for the higher user density found in Japan. Because PDC allowed handsets to have lower transmission power, tiny handsets unimaginable elsewhere can be made. Manufacturers became obsessed with making even smaller units, culminating in the PHS system where all cells are microcells covering a radius of less than a kilometer. The domestic market flourished, while the PHS system was exported to gain a huge following in large cities like Taipei and Rio. Notwithstanding their relative success, the Japanese mobile industry became disconnected with the rest of the world for years, overlapping much of the lost decade.
In this chapter above I tried to summarise the development from 1G (analogue voice) to 2G (digital voice), the next chapter will devoted to the entire 3G fiasco of which the effects are still being felt today.
Last week I went into a recently opened to 2degrees store to see if they have a good mobile data package on offer, only to find out that people who worked there have little actual knowledge of their own merchandise: I asked about WCDMA service outside major urban areas, and they replied that their network is 3G and GSM only.
It is hardly surprising that with a corporate mindset, people are hired on their ability to follow instructions and protocols rather than their own initiative. However when I actually thought about the current state of mobile technologies, it is evident that with so many different technologies and terminologies floating around, it is simply not meant for easy and painless comprehension.
Say, Vodafone NZ is operating concurrent networks, 2G GSM EDGE at 900MHz and 1800MHz, as well as a W-CDMA based, HSDPA capable 3G UMTS on 900MHz and 2100...Well I should probably stop here.
Much of the confusion had been a result of bureaucratic red-tape, political rivalry, human greed and outright stupidity. Hence this new post series is going to strip these terms to be basics in an attempt to explain them.
Depending on the context, these information could matter a lot or a little to the end user. For example, iPhone owners may find themselves with no 3G coverage while their friends with a $99 Nokia phone gets 3G practically anywhere. Nevertheless if the only activities on their mobile are plain calling and text messages, it is hardly an issue.
Before we head into the confusing world of mobile telecommunication, let us look at the earlier iterations if the copper-based phone system.
Early telephone services are nothing but a simple mesh network of interconnected phones, with your phone physically linked to all your friend's homes. Using a bit simple math, we can soon work out that the number of wires required for n users are n(n-1)/2. The situation soon imploded as every possible wiring space is filled with cables, something has to be done.
I had to use a less impressive modern example because I cannot find the file photo; for now just imagine the same tangle 10 times bigger.
Then some genius came up with the idea of telephone exchange, which uses human power to physically connect calls by forming circuits.
The Nutt sisters were the first female telephone operators bought in to replace teenage boys with poor manners; well you cannot expect good manners from a teenager on minimum wage, women are more willing to submit; need proof?
Despite the technologies of phone exchange advanced greatly over the last century, with mechanical then electronic means instead of maiden's hands, the "hub and spoke" model survived largely intact in many other forms of networks beyond voice and data.
As an oversimplified rule of thumb, high frequency means shorter distances of transmission and higher bandwidth. A few examples:
Long wave travels by the contours of the earth, hence they require very high masts. Transmission can be picked up from 3000km away on a good day.
Junglinster long wavestation
Short wave, on the other hand, gets around by getting reflected between the ground and the ionising layer of the atomsphere. Hence they have a range in tens of thousands of kilometers and remains the standard frequency for international broadcasts in this digital age.
Radio Canada's short wave towers
Microwave transmission usually travel by the line of sight, hence they have limited range usually less than 50km. Nevertheless it is of excellent spectrum density and less affected by weather.
Your average rooftop microwave mast, very likely to be a cellphone mast as well; note the drum-like relay antenna and the triangular panel antenna
With higher frequency, range is even more limited and absorption by rain and other obstacles become problematic. However they can be made into good applications such as short range remote controls.
Infrared is invisible to human eyes, however most digital cameras will notice
Hence, there is no accident that mobile phones uses a small section of microwave frequency known as UHF, which offers good range as well as the ability to carry multiple calls from one station.
Earlier iteration of radio phones are nothing more than small radio transceivers connected to the phone exchange system, with many radio masts known as base stations providing service to one area known as a cell and maintaining connection to each phone in small channels of allocated frequency. Calls are handed over to another base station once the user travels into the a different area because the same channel could be used by another device and the late comer has to be allocated a different channel.
All was well when cellular phone are few and powerful such as car phones and large handsets about the size of a hock of ham. Coverage was excellent as one major base station can cover a large radius. For example, Telecom used to have one base station on top of the sky tower for the entire central Auckland, nowadays the same area is served by hundreds to thousands of masts yet call quality is hardly better than what it used to be.
The main reason behind the evolution is that as the number of users increased, existing stations ran out of capacity for calls and had to be divided into smaller cells, and apply some tedious math to make sure there is enough channels to go around.
Conversely, the smaller cells require less power which leads to the further miniaturisation of cell phones; the first generation of true handsets were born.
Not only do cells need to be smaller in general, extra stations had to be deployed strategically at places where large number of people convene, i.e. train stations, shopping malls and office buildings. An extreme situation would be major sporting events and concerts where tens of thousands of people with cellphones are packed into a small space, often necessitating the network operators to set up temporary cell towers to be able to handle the sheer number of handsets. This adds great complexity to a mature network, since calls are handed over much more frequently over cells of varying transmission power.
Clearly, more measures are needed to be able to fit more users into the finite space of radio frequencies. Digital transmission algorithms are used to compress voice signal into smaller channels, and calls are co-modulated to utilise transmission efficiency as much as possible according to the rule of physics; however the number of calls that can be stuffed into one wavelength is still limited.This is known as Frequency-Division Multiplexing or FDM
A cunning way to get around the issue is called Time-Division Mutiplexing, where each phone is allowed a time slot in the same frequency, maximising use of the same channel. The competing standard is know as Code-Division Multiplexing. Without going too far into the technicalities, imagine FDM attempt at dividing a large hall into tiny cubicles so the occupants will not speak over the voice of each other, TDM as the same hall full of people taking turns to speak; while with CDM everybody talks at the same time, albeit in a different dialect so to avoid confusion. Most current technologies uses one of the methods or a combination of two or more.
The only viable option to transport cooked meat to the USA is to carry it as your personal luggage (in-cabin, not checked).
Inflammation increases the mutability of cells, hence NSAIDs reduce cancer risk. Aspirin and coxibs cause too much side effects so stick with paracetamol, which will do no harm unless taken in dozens.
Lab rats are the tragic results of forced incest between siblings over multiple generations to create a genetically identical population(and albino, too).
Be very careful with your mouth.
The streakers in HSB lecture rooms last year were either: 1. Bored students from Huia Residence or 2. Medics promoting the med revue. If the latter was true then it has utterly failed to achieve any kind of publicity.
Continued from last point: The PR team for the med revue has escalated their tactics. Once of them dropped into a BIOSCI202 lecture pretending to be choking and almost convinced Don Love to perform the Heimlich Maneuever on him. They also carry bodybags into MEDSCI142 labs and emerge from them 15 minutely later after failing to entice any interest.
There will be a new timetabling system in place from next year that is supposed to miraculously end the plight of traveling between campuses in less than 15 minutes. We biomed people remain universally unconvinced.
Computers in the pharmacology lab has wireless kb/mouse sets that interferes each other like crazy. Only known method to make them work is to place the transceiver right next to your hands, smooth like nitrogenated butter.
Dropbox - Best cloud backup/sharing tool available at this time, sign up if you have not already and wave goodbye to USB drives, which either get lost or end up spreading diseases.
Statistically speaking, vending machines, with their intrinstic instability, are more deadly than sharks. But the danger is more than acquiring atherosclerosis from the fizzy drinks, or getting crushed by a steel box filled with fizzy delights.
I have been researching for my toxicology report on Paraquat, a readily available toxin to bring quick and clean death to pesky plants and, painfully slow death to animals including humans. Paraquat is a potent quaternary ammounium viologen that induces reactive oxygen species in cells and cause havoc in any living organism; two teaspoons p.o. is more than enough to kill an adult. If any of my readers happens to ingest some (hopefully through an accident) I would recommed that you take another gulp after leaving a concise will. Assuming survival after the first 24 hours, lung fibrosis develops, and the major organs all gradually shut down over a period up to 30 days. The toxin does not harm the central nervous system in anyway, and there is no antidote as yet.
Coming back to vending machines,its relevance in this post is one incident in 1984, when 12 people of different backgrounds died from soft drinks lacked with paraquat from inside vending machines. None of the 12 survived; some died in a few days while others lingered on in agony for weeks.
The modus operandi successfully applied several principles of perfect crime:
Acts are against innocent people with no obvious motive, therefore no suspects could be narrowed down.
Similarly, all vending machines involved are in places of high traffic volume with no surveillance.
Instead of leaving bottles of popular drinks in the open, placing them inside the vending machine make people ASSUME it had came FROM the machine. (hey somebody left their purchase here/two drinks came out when I ordered one, the vending god must be smiling today!) Particularly for the last female victim, who took a poisoned drink from a vending machine that had a notice posted warning consumers against suspicious "free drinks".
Like successful rat poisons, paraquat is guaranteed to kill with a slow onset of symptoms, hence most victims are already beyond rescue before they reach out for help.
One unintended fallout is a sharp rise in paraquat suicides due to the extensive coverage. This is consistent with anecdotal evidence that suicide rates tend to surge following the publicity of other high-profile cases.
Other relevant development included the demise of screw-top bottles in Japan because they are much easier to tamper with than cans. Well, maybe we should view the recent re-introduction of classic coke bottle as a mixed blessing.
(Below is a post i tried to finish before the soccer world cup but never had the interest to go back to it. I'd rather post it now than leaving it forgotten for years. Who knows, I might complete it one day.)
Yes, the soccer world cup is ON! Argentina is set to play against Nigeria later and I don't have Sky TV...
A short cosmopolitan list of various sports teams I support with inconclusive reasons:
Men's Soccer - Argentina, they have not been very good recently, but still has my unwavered support.Oh and they have the best fans!
Women's Soccer - Sweden, as long as L8 is on their national team.
Rugby Union - South Africa, yeah, a shameless bokke here in Kiwiland, so what, they are good, i mean very good despite their lackluster coach.
I wish there is for for the AB
Baseball - Japan, unlike most other time-limited sports, baseball (cricket as well) has a very different gameplay, where the losing team could turn the table in a brief moment. The USA probably has most of the top players, but in Japan, baseball has become a part of the national psyche. The annual High School Baseball tournament to Japan, is what the Super Bowl is to the US.
Women's Curling - Germany, I have images to prove this
Alaska: Igloos, period
Canada: Bloody ice hockey nation
Iceland: Autonomous Danish territory, still hunting seals
Quebec: Business as usual, wine/aids
USA: World Police, modeled after Gen. MacArthur
The little ball with the hat: Republic of Texas
Mexico: Lazy latino, duh.
Central American isthmus: Nobody knows about them, just never assume Belize is a province of Guatemala or Lord Ashcroft's fury will descend upon thee; also, note the divided Panama.
The Bahamas: Oil-sucking tourist island.
Bermuda: Obvious allusion, the other triangle is probably Singapore or Nepal.
Turks and Caico: Not unlike the Bahamas, with Canadians running most of the offshore financial services.
Cuba: Socialist
Hispaniola: Dominican Republic and, er, Haiti
Puerto Rico: De facto 51st state of the USA
Jamaica: Rastafarian
Antilles: Not much going on, the 8-shaped Siamese twin is Dutch Antilles and French St. Martin. BTW, Grenada only produce 20% of the world's nutmeg, the rest most likely originates in Indonesia. A, B and C are Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao respectively.
Colombia: Meth lab Vassal of the USA.
Venezuela: Can afford to diss the US and pretend to be socialist because they've got the oil.
Guyana and Suriname: Majority of population have ancestry in Uttar Pradesh.
French Guiana: 90% wasteland and the rest comprises of the French space facilities.
Ecuador: I am really surprised by the lack of Banana jokes.
Peru: Meh
Bolivia: 150 years later, still missing its shores.
Brazil: HEUHEUHEUHEUHEU
Paraguay: No idea
Uruguay: I am trying to find out what is he drinking
Argentina: Still desperate to get the Falklands
Chile: Gone fishin'
Europe
Iceland: Sulfide and Ash generator, I mean Eyjafjallajökull, pronounce it, it's fun. Whale riderkiller.
Ireland: Still drunk on EU aid money
Nothern Ireland: Raging UDFIRA
Scotland: Nationalistic since WWII, obvious allusion to a certain Mel Gibson movie
Wales: with a sheep...?!
England: Bloated and troubled, note that when the UK is represented as Britainball, it always dons a top hat and a monocle.
Channel Islands: Half french, half British
Portugal: is a towel
Spain: Rather unconcerned about the breakaway Catalanball and Basqueball.
France: Funny cap, baguettes.
Bengium: No, Belgiumball does not exist, you have rivalling Flandernball, Walloniaball and tiny tiny Brusselsball.
In successive good news, Droid 2 goes on pre-order tomorrow. The improvements from the original droid include:
1GHz OMAP 3630 SoC by TI almighty(Not official but almost certain)
512MB RAM, 8GB(!) NAND and optional 32GB SD card
Hardware-based Wifi Tethering and DLNA support
Ships with Android 2.2(wow) and MOTOBLUR(ew)
Same 3.7in screen; improved keyboard
Maybe it is just my eyes, but the package reminds me strongly of Nokia N900, with the rounded edges, blue printing, etc. It also appears much thicker than the original Droid.
Overall, a very respectable brother of Droid X, however it will probably inherit the Blur disease too. I might consider the GSM/UMTS version once that is released. The 8GB internal storage is especially tempting; just don't expect the price to drop anytime soon.
Internet access is readily available at the University of Auckland, albeit much confusion about how to connect, even the official channels often give outdated or wrong information. I will try my best to summarise your options:
Wired connection: Desktop computers at various places are connected to the network via a physical cable. You will have to login with your usual credentials(usually on EC but some faculties maintain their own domain) or . However to be able to connect to either internal or external services you need to run NetLogin(I will write more about it later). There are also LAN sockets in some places i.e. general library, I have not used them however I suspect they work in a similar manner.
Wireless connection: The IT department has, over the years, added many wireless hotspots to most campuses so we will be able to surf the internet on the run.
Physical Coverage can be checked here. In short, newer buildings are usually well served while older ones often miss out, with access only on some levels. Nevertheless the wireless connection is more erratic in some places, for example law school buildings(too many users saturating the channel), the general library(bookshelves block signal very efficiently, some corners are perfectly shielded) and Cafe86(Bad AP, only cover about half of their floor area). In general, coverage in Grafton is fragile at best, except level 12 of the hospital wing where the connection is always smooth.
The hotspots offer several SSIDs which may appear quote daunting for the untrained eye. I will try to go over the pros and cons of each option
UoA: The plain jane non-encrypted route, and probably the easiest to use. Simply connect, launch browser, type in your login details and you are good to go. The problems are multiple: The connection send packets in plain text which is extremely vulnerable to eavesdropping; the HTTP based proxy behaves just like NetLogin(more on this later, I promise) which asks you to re-authenticate every once in a while; finally the bandwidth is limited to 128kbps, unless NetLogin is present and working, mixed blessing indeed.
UoA-Mobile: While intended for mobile devices, it works work just as well for laptops(or desktops if you like hauling heavy objects) with a little additional work using the official guide. Mobile OS handles it much better without having to mess with CA certificates, just put in your UPI and you are good to go. No high-speed connection though but it matters a little given our meager data cap.
UoA-Secure: Connect just like UoA-Mobile, except that you will be back in the same league of wired connections, where you are not getting anywhere without NetLogin. Avoid this one like plague.
UoA-Guest: Like the name suggest, this one is for guest access to university resources only. Users does not have access to the internet and other services. Particularly EC mail is unusable because it is hosted by gmail.com. I don't see any reason why any student would elect to use this one.
Eduroam/Engineering/FMHS IT/....: This is a long list of mysterious SSIDs that have nothing to do with us. Out of interest, the Engineering network is protected only by the ailing WEP encryption, but this doesn't translate into "easily crackable" since there is absolutely no traffic on that channel at all.
The major problem with the network at uni is the lack of user account integration: Logging in on a domain allows access to AFS, printing and a few other services, however to get anywhere further you will need the NetLogin client, which is probably not an issue if this piece of binary actually worked.
Well it works, only to drop connection with the server every few minutes in the background and does not reconnect. I might be exaggerating, however it is extremely annoying when it happens. Beside that, I have not been able to find a cause leading to this erratic behavior.
The problems does not stop there: even with NetLogin running, frequently used services like Cecil still require manual log in; there are still many labs where the computers are isolated from the main network, and on many occasions lecturers were unable to use the lecture terminal because someone else have locked it down(you need to be that person or belong to an admin group to unlock).
Instead of using their precious life-time to correct these issues, the IT department, out of their infinite sense of political correctness, decided that the default language of Microsoft Word should be Maori. It would have been an non-issue if this had not crippled the built-in spellchecker, which innocently assumes whatever content we typed is in our second official language and arrogant software written by English speakers deserves brain spasm.
Apparently it is manually coded into the default template to make sure users are unable to bypass it(the global settings still list NZ English as the default language, even complete removal of Maori language support does not help). The only way to re-enable spell check is to create blank documents elsewhere, or manually select paragraphs and mark them as English.
ECHO Some people have brains the size of their eyes ECHO OFF
By the time I turned 18, mom passed onto me the journal she has been keeping since I was born. It was probably to suggest that I am a case of "mission accomplished" for her, anyway, I did not like it. Mostly because the journal contains an honest account of my life since my first breath, with a good dose of constructive criticism that I never will take. The exact whereabouts of the little green notebook is not so certain, it may have been stashed securely in some random nook and cranny place that only rodents will find to devour, or else, tossed into fire while inebriated, whatever, I no longer remember.
My biggest fear is to go on and live the life of my father or grandfather, who are both loners with unqualified inferiority complex. And I see myself slipping further in that direction day by day. As a result I make up elaborate stories to create distance, however there are hard facts that I can not and shall not deny. Recall a previous post suggesting that I might have fragile X syndrome, well that was a lie. I may have a few phenotypes that seems to fit the (mis)diagnosis, however all evidences I could gather, including my mom's trusty journal of me, indicate that I acquired speech at a rather early stage with advanced clarity, hence ruling out any possibilities that I might have the disorder.
Unlike dull biologists, psychologists are a much more helpful and understanding bunch of folks, who carry on inventing all sorts of excuse to characterise and externalise your issues. Here I present: Oral Fixation.
According to the theory of psychoanalysis, pioneered by Sigmund Freud of Austria, oral fixation is the obsession resulting from either:
"1. A lack of proper gratification during one of the psycho-sexual stages of development, or 2. Receiving a strong impression from one of these stages, in which case the person's personality would reflect that stage throughout adult life."
A general feature of oral fixation is the obsession with oral stimulation, which can manifest in a wide range of behavior from nail biting, constant talking, chewing objects, overeating, tobacco/alcohol use, et cetera. Psychologically, such people are "generally passive, needy and sensitive to rejection".
Yup, that is me, I talk BS all the time, and you have all seen me popping Eclipse mints like Dr House on his Vicodin.
Going deeper down the rabbit hole, oral fixation may be further divided into two following categories.
Oral Receptive: Like the name suggests, kids with this kind of personality are easily influenced by outside ideas. They subconsciously pick up other people's accents, phrases, habits, or even an entire alternative persona.
Oral Aggressive: a.k.a. oral sadistic. This is the awful "sting" type, not unlike Eric Cartman's version of Tourette's. Externally unpleasant, they simply cannot help to be verbally abusive, whether they meant harm or not.
I am a bit of both, yet I belong more to the latter group. That is why I am never really close with anybody, or else I cannot help but to dig into their deepest fears, shames and regrets, then throw those into their face for my own amusement. I am very sorry to a certain person that I have, until recently, bombarded with school stories, as well as some rather patronising comments on certain physical attribute of theirs. I am fully aware that you are upset, despite the best effort to shrug it off. Isn't it creepy, all lengths taken to know somebody, only in order to piss them off to the maximum extent.
Semester One 2010 is officially finished this morning after the long-overdue MEDSCI201 lab test 2. Dept. of Anatomy w/ Radiology cunningly arranged the test well into the exam period so the pharmacy exam next door may be continually distracted by a 400-strong class coming, waiting and leaving in tandem. The volatile situation is not improved at all by their supervisor, a middle-aged cow lady who'd emerge every five minutes and tries to drown our chatter with her supercharged rat-like screaming, causing much mayhem.
The test went okay for us, much easier than the previous one. Only surprise is to know that colonic veins drain into the same hepatic portal, unintuitive but true.
What comes next are three exams, which will be promptly forgotten until the night before, wish me good luck, I will need several shipments of it.
Thanks for putting up with the boring stuff of my life, let us talk about things that might interest you. Shcokingly, I have been oblivious of the Polandball meme for such a long time. Basically it is the caveman's Hetalia, and according to this post on MP, "strips national stereotypes down to their cores". Pure ingenuity and, well, outright awesome, with many in-jokes that only /int/ards and /b/tards will understand. Having rudimentary knowledge of history and current affairs helps, too.
An excellent chronological summary of the Blue Diamond Affair, very interesting to read. The most absurd part of the saga is why would the Thai police give back obvious fake gems, I am sure the excuse of "your property was never recovered" would have been taken much better by the Saudis.
Actually, it all makes sense if you take into account what has been going on in the southern departments all year around. (Warning: Blood and Gore) Ethno-religious hatred sometimes do transcend economic divisions, much to the charging of left-wing historiography.
Speaking of blue diamonds, the most famous one is probably the Hope diamond, said to bring various misfortunes to owners since Louis XVI, well not really.
Blame incandescent lighting, the diamond surely is blue.
I took the photo in my last visit to the states. The stone was in its Pt setting with 16 diamond surround and 45 diamond chain;currently it is on a temporary display alone while the rest of the set reamins in maintenance.
P.S. In case you have noticed some style difference in this post, it is probably because I have changed over to the new post editor, much easier to use than the old one.
It has been a chilly day, ideal in a bum weekend when sustenance = takeaway food. Can't decide on beef or chicken? Well why not both: Have a life, have one of the world-infamous McGangbang®.
I went out for mine today, the only right way to do it is to order a double cheese burger and a McChicken sandwich, evenly split the double cheese, place the entire McChicken in the middle and reassemble.
This is how McGangbang® works, please refrain from asking more obscene questions.
Below this paragraph is my lunch before it became a part of me. I apologise for the rather unappetizingly soggy look since I let the ingredients stand for too long by taking a detour to fill the car. To make up for the lost freshness I added a generous scoop of chicken pâté (not visible, but it sits right above the chicken pattie; it helps to stablise the tower too as an edible adhesive) and some freshly ground pepper. Yum
Notice the undersized cheeseburger
Washed down with an ice-cold bottle of lemon lime & bitters, the total energy intake is approximately 4100kJ or 990cal, not including the added pâté and mints. I feel better fortified now.
A more elaborate account of the meme can be found here. Shame I had to pay over $8 for it while it costs less than half of that in the US.
On a side note, food is really cheap in the states. Grocery from a supermarket in Greenwich Village on average cost a bit less compared to my local Foodtown, mind you it was one of the more expensive places to live. The gap is much bigger in the west coast, and for most of time I was there I did not even bother eating out: There are so many wonderful and affordable options in the supermarkets, you can treat yourself to a really good meal in your motel room.
Miranda is a huge fan of McNuggets®, a habit I could not approve of. Smooth muscle is already overrepresented in ground meat, yet all nuggets contain up to 20% of chicken skin to improve texture, without the fat nuggets will crumble once fried.
Above all, I prefer the more boutique fast food chains such as Wendy's, Arby's and in the worst case: Burger King. Sure, they all have the same problems, but McBurgers are the worst. If you ever need a saturated fat fix, try drippings on toast, at least your throat does not burn as badly after consumption.
In case it was Maccas or stavation, I'd get a salad. One particularly memorable encounter with big brother Mac was in some remote town in New Hampshire where I had a chicken salad and piping hot vege soup. The latter was poured out of a plastic bag into a paper cup. Not withstanding the peculiarity, it actually tasted pretty good, or I could have been nearly frozen to oblivion that anything warm is welcomed by my system.
Search with the prefix "cache:" followed by the URL will take you directly to the latest snapshot of the page in concern, very useful for some sites where the content can be a bit volatile.
Admittedly the only MMORPG that I have spent a fair amount of time on is Ragnarok Online, and the only reason I played is because the game was in free beta testing phase, I as bored and I happen to know a bunch of people from the forum I posted regularly. I started off as a mere swordsman, getting through the first few missions was okay; later on it became a bit more demanding, no worries, forum friends are more than happy to provide you with money and equipment so you are never left grinding for gold. Still, soon I found myself to hit a glass ceiling where my progression became painfully slow.
I asked my forum friends how they got by, and they suggested that I team up with a couple of them to rack up some exps in the Tower of Griffon. I followed them a few times, and to be honest, I cannot say that I enjoyed it, since I am too stressed that I could startle the wrong monster and bring my friends down. And indeed I was more of a hindrance since I allocated my stat points rather recklessly, I had much less VIT and STR than usual. You see, I am inclined to have everything sorted by myself in one attempt that the mere thought to start a new character and go through the initial process again, horrifies me. Public beta was about to finish, so I took the alibi, ditched my friends and left the game just before I reached level 40.
So there ended my brief foray into MMORPGs. Later in life I was introduced to other MMOs such as Rune Scape, Guild Wars, WoW, etc, and I was never really intrigued to play since I know it will just be a repeat of my experiences with RO.
Others have also attempted to pull me into other so-called social games, such as Travian, O-Game, Airline Mogul, eRepublic.......the list goes on. I'd register, play for a few minutes and totally forget about it thereafter. All of those games share one common trait of endless waiting, since the only way to advance is to allow your money/minerals/weapons/rat/cheese accumulate over time, then perform certain action to consume those and carry on waiting for more, once you have played one you know the flavor of the rest. One rare exception is Mafia Wars by Zynga. I played religiously for quite a few months before finally becoming bored with it and quit altogether.
The first MMO addict that came to my attention is someone I met on the internet however unlike the usual case we ended up being good friends in real life too. Let's call him by the alias Oct (Short for Octavian Augustus) to protect the innocent. The first few years I knew him, his life was devoted to WoW. A typical Saturday would start with me visiting him at about 11am to wake him up after the raid last night, he'd rise, ablute and we will head out to find food. We talk as we eat, and as soon as the refueling was done we head back to his place so he can start playing more WoW while I go through his exceptional collection of out of print history books. He'd play a bit till it's dark outside then we head out for food again, and possibly talk a bit more than we did at lunchtime in case he need to get more game cards from the store. The process of him playing and me reading continues till I have to excuse myself, he'd wave to me , using his non-dominant hand as I exit his place without moving his eyes away from the screen.
Unlike me, he is not a loner, sure he found ample human companion in the game, even scoring him a girlfriend who crossed two entire timezones to move in with him. For obvious reason I got to visit him a lot less since then, what I am aware of were those: 1. He stopped playing WoW because he needed to work extra hours to support two of them, for her gf's equally nasty WoW addiction and lack of education making her unlikely to find a decent job. 2. In the much reduced amount of free time he played Travian with no less enthusiasm. 3. Later he dumped his WoW sweetheart (and forcibly evicted her from his house, that is after he coerced her to get an abortion in the previous year) for some other female he met while playing Travian.
I have not talked to him since that happened, guess that is what happens to pathological gamers.
Another WoW maniac I met happened to be my math teacher in Year 12. Unlike the aforementioned jerk, the teacher is a nice med-school dropout who gave me cans of Dr Pepper (which I am still fond of), and once opened the fire exit for me so I can evade capture by my enemies (dramatic license here, I forgot to make churros for a fundraiser event I signed up for, and my mates were waiting for me join them in the corridor). I will never know how much he'd play at home, but I am sure he was playing in front of the class while we were busy with some ridiculously hard questions he made up.
By all means he is not a lazy teacher; in fact he often goes beyond the curriculum to preach heavenly concepts like Infinity or Copula to our naive minds. The only problem is that he loved the game so much, that he left his job next year so he can play as much as he wants. Seriously?
One final example would be a friend's mom I mentioned before. I have only visited my friend's place a few times, as far as I can see she did not neglect to keep the house tidy and cook the meals, which is very good for the family. Nonetheless, my friend does occasionally complain that she spent too much time playing that he and his brother feel emotionally distant to the only parent that lives with them. Her case is probably the most straightforward: Middle-aged mother-of-two homemaker living alone, financially secure with a stable family, i.e. boring life. If she did not get into online gaming, she'd probably find similar escapism in other things such as collecting buttons, baking pies, saving the whales or campaigning against mining. BTW, the game she play is MapleStory, another MMO that I have found very childish and silly.
Conclusions....well, there isn't any. It is useful to note that addiction can occur in any socio-economic and/or demographic group, while individuals appears to have some genetic predisposition to their degree of addiction. People don't change, you can put them in rehab or force them to stop playing, yet their addiction will only show up again in a different form.
One pattern that repeats itself in my gaming experience is that I cannot stand repetition and failures. If a game requires repeated grinding to advance, I quit; if a game had a difficult stage that got me stuck for a long time, I quit; or worse, if I had accidentally overwritten a save slot, I quit because I could not bear to play the same game all over again to the point where I left it off. That explains why I enjoy emulators more than any other genre: The instant save/load is a godsend for impatient players.
Also, online gaming , no matter the exact reincarnation, is social gaming, and it is the reason why I never found their attraction. I am so busy entertaining myself that I don't need other people.
9. Disable SAM. The source article says to uninstall SAM and delete your lockdownd folders; it's unnecessary.
