Why would MSN, Yahoo, and AOL be so eager to cooperate? I can't believe that these corporations care one way or the other about people viewing porn. So what is it? Are they hoping that by cooperating they get some special favors later, or do they fear recrimination by the Bush administration if they refuse?
Note: A related problem is Judging Systems, where players rate in-game works of art. We've tried a number of algorithms there, and just recently have come up with one that seems to work.
The article talks about the ranking system that I invented and implemented in A Tale in the Desert for use in the Discipline of Conflict. Great to see the coverage, but unfortunately the algorithm didn't work well in practice, and we've since abandoned it.
The problem was that it took too long to converge. Of course all the parameters can be adjusted for faster convergence, but then it became too easy to metagame! I concluded that any continuous system that collapses the result to a small amount of data (like a rank (ELO), or a rank+confidence (TrueSkill) or a bitvector (eGenesis)) after a match would suffer from this problem.
"A Tale in the Desert II" replaced the eGenesis Ranking System with an asynchronous king-of-the-hill method. You start at rank 1, and must play someone at rank 1. It's asynchronous because you don't hold anyone up by not playing - the system never assigns a match. Instead, you just walk up to another rank 1 player and challenge them. They must agree to the match. The winner becomes rank 2, and the loser is "out". If you're out, you can reset back to rank 1, but only once/week. You can metagame your way through a few levels, but it takes an exponential number of co-conspirators to attain a given level. (I've simplified the system a bit. The full system is documented here.)
Unfortunately, the Conflict Discipline was only popular with a very small number of players, and it's being replaced in ATITD 3.
Note: A related problem is Judging Systems, where players rate in-game works of art. We've tried a number of algorithms there, and just recently have come up with one that
If I understand Microsoft's writeup correctly, ActiveX controls will still load without user intervention, but will require an additional click to begin accepting user input the first time.
What if someone were to write an ActiveX control that goes around and does all the clicking for other controls on the same page?
Actually the main reason in this case isn't a business one. Many of the challenges in ATITD are formulated with the assumption that most players have a single character (account). For instance in "The Test of Octec's Ghost" you are given twelve identical crystals, and are given the task of trading to assemble a collection of twenty different crystals and using them to build a huge animated statue. I intentionally designed the Test in a way where there would be a scarcity of crystals overall.
Now I realize that even as-is, some people will just buy an extra ("mule") account, but most do not. Setting up a strictly hourly system would, I believe, tempt a lot more people to do so. And it's a slippery slope: Once that happens, the game would likely develop a culture of people buying their way through challenges, and that doesn't strike me as much fun.
There are some business reasons as well that other posters have hit upon, though for some MMOs such a model may make sense. FWIW, bandwidth costs per hour are negligible: $0.0065/hour by my quick calculation.
One thing I gave serious consideration to, and may still do in a future Tale - is a separate casual server that limits players to 10 hours/week, but still charges $13.95/month. Why would anyone opt for this? By *far*, the biggest complaint and reason that casual players leave ATITD is a feeling of being unable to compete with the hardcore 40-80 hour/week crowd. The game then becomes about playing the smartest 10 hours/week you can, rather than grinding.
What about adding a clause like this to both LGPL 3 and GPL 3:
By using this software you agree never to initiate a software patent lawsuit against any person or company. If you do initiate such a lawsuit, the license fee is $1M per year, retroactively, and you are defined as "aggressive". There is one exception to this rule: Anyone may initiate software patent lawsuits against others who are aggressive.
This has the effect of even making life difficult for litigation companies: As more and more software includes at least LGPL code, over time they would have to run their companies without the use of software of any type.
Wonderful article. Twenty years ago I believed that writing software would soon become a licensed profession. (Need a license to own a compiler, for instance.) I thought that the event that would inevitably trigger this is when a software bug caused a human death.
I still believe that programming will eventually require a license, but I now think that lobbying by the big media companies will be the cause. Depressing, huh?
Though this trojan may be primitive, the fact that it permanently destroys* the PSP shows that PSPs are one buffer overflow away from an effective hardware destroying virus.
Imagine a place with a high concentration of WiFi-running PSPs, such as E3, GDC, etc. A virus makes a connection to another PSP, infects it remotely using said buffer overflow, does that a few times, and then 24 hours later kills it's host.
* Best I could tell, there's no way to remove it from the PSP. The "removal instructions" on Symantec's page appear to be for removing the file from the PC you downloaded it to.
I think that it would be more responsible to first try this procedure on animals, like monkeys or pigs. For instance, maybe they could transplant a pig's face to a monkey. They might even market these to insane rich people as "exotic pets." Another idea I had that would have a similar market is cosmetic surgery for dogs.
Update: Just on a whim I googled "cosmetic surgery for dogs" and found this. I'm gonna go throw up now.
Patents are the nuclear weapons of the software world. Many companies have them in case they get attacked, and everyone knows that should there be a patent war, there will be no winners.
The goal of disarmament is noble, but in a world where these weapons already exist, it's very difficult. I have a software patent, and would give it up in a heartbeat if everyone else would do the same. The following solution is one with perhaps even more teeth, and one that I would embrace:
I propose a modification to the rumored GPL 3.0: "The fee for this software is (huge number), due upon initiation of a software patent attack against any entity." A provision specifically allowing retaliatory lawsuits might make it even easier for patent holders to accept.
So, take for example what Unisys did with their LZW ("Gif") patent. The moment they initiated the first lawsuit, huge bills would come due, one for each piece of GPL 3.0 software they had ever used. Mutual Assured Destruction in it's purest form.
The per capita Gross Domestic Product of the US is $40,100. At this rate, one person must work 1,140 years to save someone else's life. I realize that it's very chic to say you can't put a price on life, but if you don't, the entire population of the world will quickly be working full-time to do nothing but save lives.
It's a shame that logic always loses out to "Please, won't someone think about the children!"
Probably so - a procedural texture will never look as good as a handmade, hand-UVed texture. (By definition: You could always hand-apply the result of running the shader, to a model.)
Nevertheless, I think that they can have tremendous bang-for-the-buck in a game that isn't able to hire an army of artists. I'm planing to make use of them in our next game "Tales of Alvin Maker".
I bet he's made a lot of money with all that spam. And as any Russian will tell you, don't fuck with the Mob. If only there were some way for his relatives to inherit the money without attracting attention...
Hey, I have an idea!
DEAR SIR,
ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. I AM MR. VLADIMIR NATREVSKY, COUNCIL TO ONE MR. VARDAN KUSHNIR. I HAVE IN MY POSESSION FOURTY-TWO MILLION US DOLLARS ($42,000,000.00) IN VARIOUS BANK ACCOUNTS, FROM MR. KUSHNIR'S ASSORTED BUSINESSES. Due to the violent nature of Mr. Kushiner's death, his reletives do not wish to attract attention to themselves by claiming the money. they have enlisted my aid in finding someone outside of russia to help them. the money will be deposited into a bank account of your choosing in the unites states. once this has been accomplished, and with great sadness, Mr. Kushiner's family will flee the russia that they love to start a new life. the money, less your commission, will them be transferred to them in their new homeland.
FOR YOUR HELP, YOU WILL RECEIVE 30% OF THEIR FORTUNE ($12,600,000), AND 10% ($4,200,000) WILL BE SET ASIDE FOR EXPENSES.
I've always wanted a law named after myself. A few years ago I proposed Teppy's Law: "The number of qubits available in quantum computers will increase by one, every 18 months."
Yes, but that's not the sort of thing that gets patented. I've done this before, so I know a bit about it:
A patent application is usually done as a series of claims from most general to most specific. Let's take Doom as an example. The claims might be:
#1. We invented interactive entertainment. #2....in a 3D world #3....with some elements that move and others that are static #4....where some of the moving elements are controlled by players connected
[snip]
#99....where one of the guns is a railgun that uses said supply of ammunition at a fixed rate as long as said player continues to depress the fire button.
This is done with the expectation that the patent examiner strikes most of the early claims and the hope that he allows as many of the later as possible.
Doom came out in 1995 IIRC. So, maybe Doom would have gotten a patent on 3D worlds where a player manipulates and maneuvers through said world, shooting other players.
To actually sell Doom, they would have to license Origin Systems' patent on Ultima Underworld where a player manipulates and maneuvers through a 3D world.
Both Id and Origin would have to license Sirius Software's 1979 patent on their Apple ][ game WayOut, where a player maneuvers through a 3D world.
Oh, and if *you* wanted to write a game, maybe just a "simple shooter" - bring out the lawyers because there's gonna be a hell of a lot of licenses to negotiate.
I'm obsessed with Dance Dance Revolution, and so I built myself a DDR Studio! The web page shows version 1.0 of the studio. I'll soon have an update to show the even nicer 2.0 version.
This is why it's important to make encrypted communication the default in every application that we develop. It then becomes impractical to mandate that only programs using cleartext communication are allowed. It also makes it difficult to determine who's likely a dissident by analyzing their traffic.
Actually, no. I have one of the shortest attention spans for exercise of anyone on the planet. My basement is a graveyard of sports equipment. A year ago I started doing DDR, and I'm as much of a fanatic as ever.
I built a "studio" in a vacant office next to mine, so I can take a few dancing breaks during the day. I can't see getting sick of DDR any more that I might "get sick of" music itself.
Seriously, this is fairly close to what SCO is claiming: IBM wrote code based on SCO's code, and then contributed the code that they themselves wrote (not SCO's code) to Linux. SCO claims that the license terms of all code derived from IBM's contributions now follow the SCO/IBM contract.
In fact, SCO's case is actually stronger: The code they claim to own was written after, and based on the "tainted" Linux code. Your employer is claiming to own code written by other people prior to your contract with them, because you (implicitly) promised it to them.
Let's say I promise, as part of my employment, to give my employer the Brooklyn Bridge. Not only don't they own the bridge, but they should have known better than to expect ownership of the bridge.
If you're only considering "leading candidates" then I think your "voting decision process" is pretty damn simple already. McDonalds or Burger King, big choice.
Text adventures with Dasher for text input
on
Gaming With a Headmouse?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
There are hundreds of beautifully crafted text adventures these days, and Dasher is a text input system that addresses your exact condition. Basically, letters fly by and you "steer" the pointer to each letter's region. The genius here is that Dasher learns the things that you tend to input a lot, and makes those regions take up a large convenient part of the entry area, while pushing unusual sequences to the margins.
When I just now typed "Asbestos" into Google and clicked on the eight ads that came up on the right, I just cost a bunch of lawyers over $100? W007! I think I'll try it again from work.
This is one of my favorite recipes: Begin by chopping three medium sized carrots into slivers.Sautee them as you suggest, but with some good quality butter, rather than olive oil. Add two cups of heavy cream and reduce until the cream thickens. Fry up a pound of bacon and chop into small pieces. Toss with some bread crumbs to firm this all up. Reserve the rendered bacon fat.
Form the above mixture into small patties. Coat in a beer batter and deep-fry. Use the reserved bacon fat, along with the yolks of 6 eggs to make a bacon fat hollendaise. Cover the patties in hollendaise sauce, and serve, accompanied by milkshakes.
I can't begin to tell you how relieved I was to discover that carrots are considered healthy.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would MSN, Yahoo, and AOL be so eager to cooperate? I can't believe that these corporations care one way or the other about people viewing porn. So what is it? Are they hoping that by cooperating they get some special favors later, or do they fear recrimination by the Bush administration if they refuse?
Screwed up that last link. It should say:
Note: A related problem is Judging Systems, where players rate in-game works of art. We've tried a number of algorithms there, and just recently have come up with one that seems to work.
Yeah, I known, "preview button", blah.
The article talks about the ranking system that I invented and implemented in A Tale in the Desert for use in the Discipline of Conflict. Great to see the coverage, but unfortunately the algorithm didn't work well in practice, and we've since abandoned it.
The problem was that it took too long to converge. Of course all the parameters can be adjusted for faster convergence, but then it became too easy to metagame! I concluded that any continuous system that collapses the result to a small amount of data (like a rank (ELO), or a rank+confidence (TrueSkill) or a bitvector (eGenesis)) after a match would suffer from this problem.
"A Tale in the Desert II" replaced the eGenesis Ranking System with an asynchronous king-of-the-hill method. You start at rank 1, and must play someone at rank 1. It's asynchronous because you don't hold anyone up by not playing - the system never assigns a match. Instead, you just walk up to another rank 1 player and challenge them. They must agree to the match. The winner becomes rank 2, and the loser is "out". If you're out, you can reset back to rank 1, but only once/week. You can metagame your way through a few levels, but it takes an exponential number of co-conspirators to attain a given level. (I've simplified the system a bit. The full system is documented here.)
Unfortunately, the Conflict Discipline was only popular with a very small number of players, and it's being replaced in ATITD 3.
Note: A related problem is Judging Systems, where players rate in-game works of art. We've tried a number of algorithms there, and just recently have come up with one that
If I understand Microsoft's writeup correctly, ActiveX controls will still load without user intervention, but will require an additional click to begin accepting user input the first time.
What if someone were to write an ActiveX control that goes around and does all the clicking for other controls on the same page?
(BTW, I'm lead designer of A Tale in the Desert)
Actually the main reason in this case isn't a business one. Many of the challenges in ATITD are formulated with the assumption that most players have a single character (account). For instance in "The Test of Octec's Ghost" you are given twelve identical crystals, and are given the task of trading to assemble a collection of twenty different crystals and using them to build a huge animated statue. I intentionally designed the Test in a way where there would be a scarcity of crystals overall.
Now I realize that even as-is, some people will just buy an extra ("mule") account, but most do not. Setting up a strictly hourly system would, I believe, tempt a lot more people to do so. And it's a slippery slope: Once that happens, the game would likely develop a culture of people buying their way through challenges, and that doesn't strike me as much fun.
There are some business reasons as well that other posters have hit upon, though for some MMOs such a model may make sense. FWIW, bandwidth costs per hour are negligible: $0.0065/hour by my quick calculation.
One thing I gave serious consideration to, and may still do in a future Tale - is a separate casual server that limits players to 10 hours/week, but still charges $13.95/month. Why would anyone opt for this? By *far*, the biggest complaint and reason that casual players leave ATITD is a feeling of being unable to compete with the hardcore 40-80 hour/week crowd. The game then becomes about playing the smartest 10 hours/week you can, rather than grinding.
What about adding a clause like this to both LGPL 3 and GPL 3:
By using this software you agree never to initiate a software patent lawsuit against any person or company. If you do initiate such a lawsuit, the license fee is $1M per year, retroactively, and you are defined as "aggressive". There is one exception to this rule: Anyone may initiate software patent lawsuits against others who are aggressive.
This has the effect of even making life difficult for litigation companies: As more and more software includes at least LGPL code, over time they would have to run their companies without the use of software of any type.
Wonderful article. Twenty years ago I believed that writing software would soon become a licensed profession. (Need a
license to own a compiler, for instance.) I thought that the event that would inevitably trigger this is when a software
bug caused a human death.
I still believe that programming will eventually require a license, but I now think that lobbying by the big media
companies will be the cause. Depressing, huh?
Though this trojan may be primitive, the fact that it permanently destroys* the PSP shows that PSPs are one buffer overflow away from an effective hardware destroying virus.
Imagine a place with a high concentration of WiFi-running PSPs, such as E3, GDC, etc. A virus makes a connection to another PSP, infects it remotely using said buffer overflow, does that a few times, and then 24 hours later kills it's host.
* Best I could tell, there's no way to remove it from the PSP. The "removal instructions" on Symantec's page appear to be for removing the file from the PC you downloaded it to.
I think that it would be more responsible to first try this procedure on animals, like monkeys or pigs. For instance, maybe they could transplant a pig's face to a monkey. They might even market these to insane rich people as "exotic pets."
Another idea I had that would have a similar market is cosmetic surgery for dogs.
Update: Just on a whim I googled "cosmetic surgery for dogs" and found this. I'm gonna go throw up now.
Patents are the nuclear weapons of the software world. Many companies have them in case they get attacked, and everyone knows that should there be a patent war, there will be no winners.
The goal of disarmament is noble, but in a world where these weapons already exist, it's very difficult. I have a software patent, and would give it up in a heartbeat if everyone else would do the same. The following solution is one with perhaps even more teeth, and one that I would embrace:
I propose a modification to the rumored GPL 3.0: "The fee for this software is (huge number), due upon initiation of a software patent attack against any entity." A provision specifically allowing retaliatory lawsuits might make it even easier for patent holders to accept.
So, take for example what Unisys did with their LZW ("Gif") patent. The moment they initiated the first lawsuit, huge bills would come due, one for each piece of GPL 3.0 software they had ever used. Mutual Assured Destruction in it's purest form.
I know that there will soon be people chomping at the bit to mandate these things.
I did some calculations. There are 7.6 million residential pools in the US, and 832 drownings per year among children age 0-14. This number includes non-pool drownings, so the cost to save each child is actually higher than below. There are also a smaller number of adult deaths. Assuming a pool lasts for 20 years:
Cost per pool per year:
$100,000/20 = $5,000.
Cost per year, nationwide:
$5,000 * 7.6M = $38B
Cost per life saved:
$38B / 832 = $45.6M
The per capita Gross Domestic Product of the US is $40,100. At this rate, one person must work 1,140 years to save someone else's life. I realize that it's very chic to say you can't put a price on life, but if you don't, the entire population of the world will quickly be working full-time to do nothing but save lives.
It's a shame that logic always loses out to "Please, won't someone think about the children!"
Probably so - a procedural texture will never look as good as a handmade, hand-UVed texture. (By definition: You could always hand-apply the result of running the shader, to a model.)
Nevertheless, I think that they can have tremendous bang-for-the-buck in a game that isn't able to hire an army of artists. I'm planing to make use of them in our next game "Tales of Alvin Maker".
I bet he's made a lot of money with all that spam. And as any Russian will tell you, don't fuck with the Mob. If only there were some way for his relatives to inherit the money without attracting attention...
Hey, I have an idea!
DEAR SIR,
ALLOW ME TO INTRODUCE MYSELF. I AM MR. VLADIMIR NATREVSKY, COUNCIL TO ONE MR. VARDAN
KUSHNIR. I HAVE IN MY POSESSION FOURTY-TWO MILLION US DOLLARS ($42,000,000.00) IN VARIOUS
BANK ACCOUNTS, FROM MR. KUSHNIR'S ASSORTED BUSINESSES. Due to the violent nature of Mr. Kushiner's
death, his reletives do not wish to attract attention to themselves by claiming the money. they
have enlisted my aid in finding someone outside of russia to help them. the money will be deposited into
a bank account of your choosing in the unites states. once this has been accomplished, and with great
sadness, Mr. Kushiner's family will flee the russia that they love to start a new life. the money,
less your commission, will them be transferred to them in their new homeland.
FOR YOUR HELP, YOU WILL RECEIVE 30% OF THEIR FORTUNE ($12,600,000), AND 10% ($4,200,000) WILL BE SET ASIDE FOR
EXPENSES.
YOURS FAITHFULLY,
Mr. VLADIMIR NATREVSKY
I've always wanted a law named after myself. A few years ago I proposed Teppy's Law: "The number of qubits available in quantum computers will increase by one, every 18 months."
If state of the art is now 14, I'm not far off.
Yes, but that's not the sort of thing that gets patented. I've done this before, so I know a bit about it:
...in a 3D world ...with some elements that move and others that are static ...where some of the moving elements are controlled by players connected
...where one of the guns is a railgun that uses said supply of ammunition at a fixed rate as long as said player continues to depress the fire button.
A patent application is usually done as a series of claims from most general to most specific. Let's take Doom as an example. The claims might be:
#1. We invented interactive entertainment.
#2.
#3.
#4.
[snip]
#99.
This is done with the expectation that the patent examiner strikes most of the early claims and the hope that he allows as many of the later as possible.
Doom came out in 1995 IIRC. So, maybe Doom would have gotten a patent on 3D worlds where a player manipulates and maneuvers through said world, shooting other players.
To actually sell Doom, they would have to license Origin Systems' patent on Ultima Underworld where a player manipulates and maneuvers through a 3D world.
Both Id and Origin would have to license Sirius Software's 1979 patent on their Apple ][ game WayOut, where a player maneuvers through a 3D world.
Oh, and if *you* wanted to write a game, maybe just a "simple shooter" - bring out the lawyers because there's gonna be a hell of a lot of licenses to negotiate.
Well, a chance to show off my baby:
I'm obsessed with Dance Dance Revolution, and so I built myself a DDR Studio! The web page shows version 1.0 of the studio. I'll soon have an update to show the even nicer 2.0 version.
This is why it's important to make encrypted communication the default in every application that we develop. It then becomes impractical to mandate that only programs using cleartext communication are allowed. It also makes it difficult to determine who's likely a dissident by analyzing their traffic.
If I release a DVD where some of the master keys have been removed, then a higher percentage of the DVDs get returned.
Actually, no. I have one of the shortest attention spans for exercise of anyone on the planet. My basement is a graveyard of sports equipment. A year ago I started doing DDR, and I'm as much of a fanatic as ever.
I built a "studio" in a vacant office next to mine, so I can take a few dancing breaks during the day. I can't see getting sick of DDR any more that I might "get sick of" music itself.
I believe that every widely distributed browser has had at least one run-arbitrary-code exploit found.
So, wagers on how long until unsigned code can run on PSPs?
Is your employer by any chance SCO?
Seriously, this is fairly close to what SCO is claiming: IBM wrote code based on SCO's code, and then contributed the code that they themselves wrote (not SCO's code) to Linux. SCO claims that the license terms of all code derived from IBM's contributions now follow the SCO/IBM contract.
In fact, SCO's case is actually stronger: The code they claim to own was written after, and based on the "tainted" Linux code. Your employer is claiming to own code written by other people prior to your contract with them, because you (implicitly) promised it to them.
Let's say I promise, as part of my employment, to give my employer the Brooklyn Bridge. Not only don't they own the bridge, but they should have known better than to expect ownership of the bridge.
If you're only considering "leading candidates" then I think your "voting decision process" is pretty damn simple already. McDonalds or Burger King, big choice.
There are hundreds of beautifully crafted text adventures these days, and Dasher is a text input system that addresses your exact condition. Basically, letters fly by and you "steer" the pointer to each letter's region. The genius here is that Dasher learns the things that you tend to input a lot, and makes those regions take up a large convenient part of the entry area, while pushing unusual sequences to the margins.
When I just now typed "Asbestos" into Google and clicked on the eight ads that came up on the right, I just cost a bunch of lawyers over $100? W007! I think I'll try it again from work.
This is one of my favorite recipes: Begin by chopping three medium sized carrots into slivers.Sautee them as you suggest, but with some good quality butter, rather than olive oil. Add two cups of heavy cream and reduce until the cream thickens. Fry up a pound of bacon and chop into small pieces. Toss with some bread crumbs to firm this all up. Reserve the rendered bacon fat.
Form the above mixture into small patties. Coat in a beer batter and deep-fry. Use the reserved bacon fat, along with the yolks of 6 eggs to make a bacon fat hollendaise. Cover the patties in hollendaise sauce, and serve, accompanied by milkshakes.
I can't begin to tell you how relieved I was to discover that carrots are considered healthy.