Sounds like to win any money you have to travel, so keep that in mind when you sign up.
"The top 25 performers in Round 2 will be invited to compete for cash prizes in the Championship Round onsite at the Googleplex (Mountain View, CA) on November 14th."
They are floating the bill though, according to the terms
" Google will provide travel accommodations for each finalist to attend the Championship Round. In addition, Google will provide overnight accommodations and all travel arrangements to and from the airport, as well as to and from Google's headquarters. All other expenses are the responsibility of the contestant. "
My issue is just with this portion "to build a small home network"
I don't know how much work you do for friends/family, but I can forsee this causing alot of problems. People setting up a wireless home network without closing it off properly (which let's face it, is not in Joe User's 1 page install instructions) can be a pretty big problem.
Broadcasting wireless home network + shared drives - Mac Address Filtering = Bad.
I know I don't want to clean up that mess, or tell someone "Sorry bub, you got torn into and there isn't anything I can do about it."
A new technology available from Intel in mid-2004, will help to simplify home networking by including a wireless access point and router functionality as an embedded feature of the PC to help minimize the need for external equipment or cables to build a small home network.
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but does anyone want to take a stab at how long it takes for this to turn into a problem?
I suppose you could go do the StarOffice pitch to your boss, the only problem I forsee is trying to keep up with M$ and their new ideas for keeping Office locked down with the proposed security interface with Win2k3, and incompatibilities with other Office suites. Could be more of a hassle than it's worth down the line...
You can get the same thing you looked at yesterday 5x faster!!
Caching and compression will only get you so far before lossiness (sp?) kicks in and you start getting garbage, or caching works so well you get the same page every time you load it.
Get on the bandwagon and chip the money for Broadband if you're looking to boost your speeds. If you can't get a/v any faster, really, what's the point?
Low bandwidth main pages becoming less and less prevalent so it's not going to do you much anyway, plus, you're still paying for it...
Personally, it looks to me like there are 2 very different sides of the story to this.
On one hand you have the "Pro-Life" advocates saying that you can't justify the research since it might play a part in the death of an unborn embryo. You can read a few of those types of articles here and here to get a feel for that side of the story.
On the flip side the AAAS has a very compelling document here in PDF format. Also CAMR has a nice little diddy about their stance here.
Bush and the Senate seem to have made their stance on the matter known as well...so enjoy!
There is alot of discussion, and alot remains to be seen, but I thought I'd toss out some links to help everyone form their own opinion on the matter.
Courtesy of this/. article which links to this story on Information Week, you can see it's all pretty much summed up here.
For SmartRight to be effective, it would have to be adopted by makers of high-definition TVs, set-top boxes, digital video recorders, and PCs. Thomson makes high-definition televisions, set-top boxes, and satellite television hardware, but it would need the cooperation of computer makers and legislators, who would have to mandate the inclusion of the technology in future hardware
Seems to me this is still a ways off even if Philips decides to adopt it as there is still plenty of resistance from other angles. I wouldn't be shivering just yet. Just because HDTV mfrs. are out putting these things in their TV's is basically now just a waste of money, since there is nobody that utilizes the technology.
It's going to be a stalemate a while yet as broadcasting companies, as well as film studios won't put the encryption in until everyone has one, and TV / set top mfr's won't add the cards, since it's a waste of money.
Since IANAL I won't even get into the logistics of getting something like this passed through proper legal channels and all the hoopla that will create....
The way I see it is this...Blizzard is arguably one of the top software gaming manufacturers worldwide. The gameplay might not be a huge improvement over SC and WCII, but there is a change in the hero char. aspect, inventory, and from what most of the review sites say, less need to mindlessly gather resources.
I know that the company is backed by some shady roots that throw the DMCA around like it's thier own personal problem-solver. Does that mean I'm not going to buy thier game, No.
I'm a gamer, and I support Blizzard. They make great games. The simple fact that it seems everyone is missing is that BnetD and the like are putting out a software that has the direct repercussion of cutting into Blizzards profits. Why that is being overlooked is beyond me. Sure they engineered it from the ground up (or so it's being said), but the fact still remains that BnetD is a pirate utility promoting NOT purchasing a full licenced version of W3.
If any one of you owned a business which produced a software, and some outside source put up a utility that basically let any jackhole on the web download an ISO of your CD-ROM and play it multiplayer (which, let's face it, is the entire premise of these types of games) for free, effectivley pissing on your bottom line (monitarily that is), you'd be irate to, and find any legal loophole there was to shut them down. Blizzard did just that, and I say Bravo.
BnetD asking to use Battle.net's CD-Key verification was a total farse. Blizzard saw the fact that if they opened up that kind of information that it could be much more easily exploited...who knows how secure the BnetD guys really are...would you risk your couple hundred thousand dollar investment on it...hell no you wouldn't. Do you know how easy it would have been for BnetD to just overwrite any CD-Key you typed in with a valid one and send that to Battle.net for obviously successful verification?
Think it through guys, they are protecting thier investment and any one of you would do the same think if you had that kind of money riding on it.
Bottom line...Blizzard makes great games, to continue to do that, they need to make money. To make money, they have to shut down those out to exploit thier product for free.
What I'd do is ask myself..."Do I enjoy this software?" If I did, I'd upgrade to meet their requirements. If I didn't, screw them, and I'd buy a new software that worked on my current system. My point is, there are lots of games that work on lower end machines. Nobody is saying you HAVE to play Everquest.
Nobody is asking why Windows XP won't run on the 286 they have in the garage.
In the EULA you click on every time you load the game, in every published EQ manual, and all SOE documentation regarding requirements it CLEARLY states, and I know I'm paraphrasing here... "Requirements for the game may change at any time to keep up with current technologies." "This is our game and we can do what we want. If you don't like it, or it doesn't work, get lost." I know EULA's are just clickthrough garbarge, but the message is there. SOE is going to continue to supply the demand of hardcore and casual gamers with rich content, beautiful graphics, and amazing gameplay, even if it is at the cost of lower end systems no longer being able to run it. They didn't make this move until after M$ said that Win95 is no longer supported by them. SOE needed DirectX 8.1 to put in the new graphics, 8.1 does't work with 95, and that meant no more 95 EQ users.
Is it your problem your problem that your OS is 7 years old, or you're running a video card made for the original Doom with horrible 3d acceleration? I would venture to say yes. The OEM for Win95 no longer supports it, so why should SOE? Besides, in 6 months no decent games will support those garbage cards anyway, Verant and SOE are just leading the pack requiring upgrades.
In the EULA you click on every time you load the game, in every published EQ manual, and all SOE documentation regarding requirements it CLEARLY states, and I know I'm paraphrasing here... "Requirements for the game may change at any time to keep up with current technologies." "This is our game and we can do what we want. If you don't like it, or it doesn't work, get lost." I know EULA's are just clickthrough garbarge, but the message is there. SOE is going to continue to supply the demand of hardcore and casual gamers with rich content, beautiful graphics, and amazing gameplay, even if it is at the cost of lower end systems no longer being able to run it. They didn't make this move until after M$ said that Win95 is no longer supported by them. SOE needed DirectX 8.1 to put in the new graphics, 8.1 does't work with 95, and that meant no more 95 EQ users.
Is it your problem your problem that your OS is 7 years old, or you're running a video card made for the original Doom with horrible 3d acceleration? I would venture to say yes. The OEM for Win95 no longer supports it, so why should SOE? Besides, in 6 months no decent games will support those garbage cards anyway, Verant and SOE are just leading the pack requiring upgrades.
As a current player of several high level charachters on one of the oldest servers around I've been through the thick and thin of every patch, revamp and expansion SOE has thrown out for the crack addicts.
Here's my 2cp on the whole interaction deal. First off, Everquest has had naming filters in for the vast majoritity of its implementation to prevent L33TH4x0r from joining yoru group. You may see one or two lucky bums skip past the filter at the beginning of the game, but the GM's don't cotton to CrapyHedd the troll on thier server.
Secondly, and more importantly, Everquest is a completley social game. If you don't like dealing with people, you better not play. That unfortunatley can be a problem for non-peak hour players, but most people seem to enjoy joining a guild, making friends, and finding new ways to complement each others play styles. You'll find on the older servers many of the players are mid/late 20's to late 30's. Most have jobs, and are probably upstanding citizens looking to unwind by goreing a Dervish Cutthroat with thier newly acquired Crystalline Spider Fang. I think these are the types of people who want a challenge in the game they play, and no matter how much is sucks, a penalty for when you lose the battle.
I used to like simple single player games, StarCraft comes instantly to mind. I used to be a good player, but now you can't even log into Battle.Net and find a friendly game. Now it's just who's hack works the fastest. It's rediculous. Everquest makes cheaters a thing of the past.
In closing, I'd suggest everyone bent on 1 player shoot em up games to go out and puchase the old world of Everquest. Fire up a newbie and start having fun. 99% of you will be hooked, and buying expantions before you know it.
The market for single player games like Myst/Duke Nukem et al will always be there, but in a year or two, you watch...between EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, and Star Wars Galaxies which is due out, MMORPG's will rule the industry as the money continues to roll in long after the game was sold.
Confirmed report from United Airlines officials stated that Flight 175, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston to LAX is still MIA flying around out there. Also, A flight from Newark to LAX from United is the one belived to have crashed in Penn.
EULA's are such grey area in the software world today. The earlier post about Sony saying "after one month you have to give us your first born son" is obviously against your un-alienable rights as an American, however, that's a little off base from what Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is actually saying. What they are saying is that buying and selling accounts is in fact against the rules. I, as an avid EQ addict know this is in fact cheating and knowing that some corperate putz who's never played a day in his life, could come and get in my high level group, and end up getting me killed, possibly losing my corpse and losing MONTHS of invested time. That's just BS to me. The only analogy I can think of would be, you RENT the data from SOE...you rent the calls to the items on their servers, which is the only place you can play the game. What selling an account would be is SURE, it is your account name and password, ect. But it doesn't make what's on the other side of it yours. Let's say someone you don't know rents a car, and puts his name on the agreement. Then he goes to Wal-Mart and makes a copy of the car keys, and auctions them on Ebay for a substantial price. You bid on it and win. Now you OWN that key...it's yours. What you cannot do is take that key, open the car and drive off with it....it's not yours. It's still owned by the car rental organization. Sony's case lies there. Now because the calls to the items stored on Sony's database are on your hard drive is another story all together, and I'm not quite sure how that will pan out.
Slashdot Mirror
TopCoder approved charity list:
1) TopCoder
2)
Hrm...
Sounds like to win any money you have to travel, so keep that in mind when you sign up.
"The top 25 performers in Round 2 will be invited to compete for cash prizes in the Championship Round onsite at the Googleplex (Mountain View, CA) on November 14th."
They are floating the bill though, according to the terms
" Google will provide travel accommodations for each finalist to attend the Championship Round. In addition, Google will provide overnight accommodations and all travel arrangements to and from the airport, as well as to and from Google's headquarters. All other expenses are the responsibility of the contestant. "
My issue is just with this portion
"to build a small home network"
I don't know how much work you do for friends/family, but I can forsee this causing alot of problems. People setting up a wireless home network without closing it off properly (which let's face it, is not in Joe User's 1 page install instructions) can be a pretty big problem.
Broadcasting wireless home network + shared drives - Mac Address Filtering = Bad.
I know I don't want to clean up that mess, or tell someone "Sorry bub, you got torn into and there isn't anything I can do about it."
Maybe I'm just pessimistic, but does anyone want to take a stab at how long it takes for this to turn into a problem?
I suppose you could go do the StarOffice pitch to your boss, the only problem I forsee is trying to keep up with M$ and their new ideas for keeping Office locked down with the proposed security interface with Win2k3, and incompatibilities with other Office suites. Could be more of a hassle than it's worth down the line...
Blah...
You can get the same thing you looked at yesterday 5x faster!!
Caching and compression will only get you so far before lossiness (sp?) kicks in and you start getting garbage, or caching works so well you get the same page every time you load it.
Get on the bandwagon and chip the money for Broadband if you're looking to boost your speeds. If you can't get a/v any faster, really, what's the point?
Low bandwidth main pages becoming less and less prevalent so it's not going to do you much anyway, plus, you're still paying for it...
Personally, it looks to me like there are 2 very different sides of the story to this.
On one hand you have the "Pro-Life" advocates saying that you can't justify the research since it might play a part in the death of an unborn embryo. You can read a few of those types of articles here and here to get a feel for that side of the story.
On the flip side the AAAS has a very compelling document here in PDF format. Also CAMR has a nice little diddy about their stance here.
Bush and the Senate seem to have made their stance on the matter known as well...so enjoy!
There is alot of discussion, and alot remains to be seen, but I thought I'd toss out some links to help everyone form their own opinion on the matter.
Wow, looks like the /. crew is at it again.
The way I see it is this...Blizzard is arguably one of the top software gaming manufacturers worldwide. The gameplay might not be a huge improvement over SC and WCII, but there is a change in the hero char. aspect, inventory, and from what most of the review sites say, less need to mindlessly gather resources.
I know that the company is backed by some shady roots that throw the DMCA around like it's thier own personal problem-solver. Does that mean I'm not going to buy thier game, No.
I'm a gamer, and I support Blizzard. They make great games. The simple fact that it seems everyone is missing is that BnetD and the like are putting out a software that has the direct repercussion of cutting into Blizzards profits. Why that is being overlooked is beyond me. Sure they engineered it from the ground up (or so it's being said), but the fact still remains that BnetD is a pirate utility promoting NOT purchasing a full licenced version of W3.
If any one of you owned a business which produced a software, and some outside source put up a utility that basically let any jackhole on the web download an ISO of your CD-ROM and play it multiplayer (which, let's face it, is the entire premise of these types of games) for free, effectivley pissing on your bottom line (monitarily that is), you'd be irate to, and find any legal loophole there was to shut them down. Blizzard did just that, and I say Bravo.
BnetD asking to use Battle.net's CD-Key verification was a total farse. Blizzard saw the fact that if they opened up that kind of information that it could be much more easily exploited...who knows how secure the BnetD guys really are...would you risk your couple hundred thousand dollar investment on it...hell no you wouldn't. Do you know how easy it would have been for BnetD to just overwrite any CD-Key you typed in with a valid one and send that to Battle.net for obviously successful verification?
Think it through guys, they are protecting thier investment and any one of you would do the same think if you had that kind of money riding on it.
Bottom line...Blizzard makes great games, to continue to do that, they need to make money. To make money, they have to shut down those out to exploit thier product for free.
Sorry for the rant, but that had to be said
-Grover
Actually,
What I'd do is ask myself..."Do I enjoy this software?" If I did, I'd upgrade to meet their requirements. If I didn't, screw them, and I'd buy a new software that worked on my current system. My point is, there are lots of games that work on lower end machines. Nobody is saying you HAVE to play Everquest.
Nobody is asking why Windows XP won't run on the 286 they have in the garage.
Actually, I think it is the consumers problem.
In the EULA you click on every time you load the game, in every published EQ manual, and all SOE documentation regarding requirements it CLEARLY states, and I know I'm paraphrasing here... "Requirements for the game may change at any time to keep up with current technologies." "This is our game and we can do what we want. If you don't like it, or it doesn't work, get lost." I know EULA's are just clickthrough garbarge, but the message is there. SOE is going to continue to supply the demand of hardcore and casual gamers with rich content, beautiful graphics, and amazing gameplay, even if it is at the cost of lower end systems no longer being able to run it. They didn't make this move until after M$ said that Win95 is no longer supported by them. SOE needed DirectX 8.1 to put in the new graphics, 8.1 does't work with 95, and that meant no more 95 EQ users.
Is it your problem your problem that your OS is 7 years old, or you're running a video card made for the original Doom with horrible 3d acceleration? I would venture to say yes. The OEM for Win95 no longer supports it, so why should SOE? Besides, in 6 months no decent games will support those garbage cards anyway, Verant and SOE are just leading the pack requiring upgrades.
Actually, it is the consumers problem.
In the EULA you click on every time you load the game, in every published EQ manual, and all SOE documentation regarding requirements it CLEARLY states, and I know I'm paraphrasing here... "Requirements for the game may change at any time to keep up with current technologies." "This is our game and we can do what we want. If you don't like it, or it doesn't work, get lost." I know EULA's are just clickthrough garbarge, but the message is there. SOE is going to continue to supply the demand of hardcore and casual gamers with rich content, beautiful graphics, and amazing gameplay, even if it is at the cost of lower end systems no longer being able to run it. They didn't make this move until after M$ said that Win95 is no longer supported by them. SOE needed DirectX 8.1 to put in the new graphics, 8.1 does't work with 95, and that meant no more 95 EQ users.
Is it your problem your problem that your OS is 7 years old, or you're running a video card made for the original Doom with horrible 3d acceleration? I would venture to say yes. The OEM for Win95 no longer supports it, so why should SOE? Besides, in 6 months no decent games will support those garbage cards anyway, Verant and SOE are just leading the pack requiring upgrades.
As a current player of several high level charachters on one of the oldest servers around I've been through the thick and thin of every patch, revamp and expansion SOE has thrown out for the crack addicts.
Here's my 2cp on the whole interaction deal. First off, Everquest has had naming filters in for the vast majoritity of its implementation to prevent L33TH4x0r from joining yoru group. You may see one or two lucky bums skip past the filter at the beginning of the game, but the GM's don't cotton to CrapyHedd the troll on thier server.
Secondly, and more importantly, Everquest is a completley social game. If you don't like dealing with people, you better not play. That unfortunatley can be a problem for non-peak hour players, but most people seem to enjoy joining a guild, making friends, and finding new ways to complement each others play styles. You'll find on the older servers many of the players are mid/late 20's to late 30's. Most have jobs, and are probably upstanding citizens looking to unwind by goreing a Dervish Cutthroat with thier newly acquired Crystalline Spider Fang. I think these are the types of people who want a challenge in the game they play, and no matter how much is sucks, a penalty for when you lose the battle.
I used to like simple single player games, StarCraft comes instantly to mind. I used to be a good player, but now you can't even log into Battle.Net and find a friendly game. Now it's just who's hack works the fastest. It's rediculous. Everquest makes cheaters a thing of the past.
In closing, I'd suggest everyone bent on 1 player shoot em up games to go out and puchase the old world of Everquest. Fire up a newbie and start having fun. 99% of you will be hooked, and buying expantions before you know it.
The market for single player games like Myst/Duke Nukem et al will always be there, but in a year or two, you watch...between EQ, AC, AO, DAoC, and Star Wars Galaxies which is due out, MMORPG's will rule the industry as the money continues to roll in long after the game was sold.
Confirmed report from United Airlines officials stated that Flight 175, a Boeing 767 en route from Boston to LAX is still MIA flying around out there. Also, A flight from Newark to LAX from United is the one belived to have crashed in Penn.
Trying to keep you all updated...
this all courtesy of KCBS
EULA's are such grey area in the software world today. The earlier post about Sony saying "after one month you have to give us your first born son" is obviously against your un-alienable rights as an American, however, that's a little off base from what Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) is actually saying. What they are saying is that buying and selling accounts is in fact against the rules. I, as an avid EQ addict know this is in fact cheating and knowing that some corperate putz who's never played a day in his life, could come and get in my high level group, and end up getting me killed, possibly losing my corpse and losing MONTHS of invested time. That's just BS to me. The only analogy I can think of would be, you RENT the data from SOE...you rent the calls to the items on their servers, which is the only place you can play the game. What selling an account would be is SURE, it is your account name and password, ect. But it doesn't make what's on the other side of it yours. Let's say someone you don't know rents a car, and puts his name on the agreement. Then he goes to Wal-Mart and makes a copy of the car keys, and auctions them on Ebay for a substantial price. You bid on it and win. Now you OWN that key...it's yours. What you cannot do is take that key, open the car and drive off with it....it's not yours. It's still owned by the car rental organization. Sony's case lies there. Now because the calls to the items stored on Sony's database are on your hard drive is another story all together, and I'm not quite sure how that will pan out.