Rewriting from scratch is done too often, and most of the time fixing the original would have been better. However, sometimes you really do have to rewrite from scratch. You can only polish a turd so much.
Your comment is like saying, "Never use a hammer." Sure, a hammer is inappropriate for screwing screws, and it's a poor way to open a window, and most anti-spam solutions involving a hammer are illegal, but sometimes you have a nail that you need to beat into a board.
Wow. Did you even bother to read the page you linked to? Or perhaps you failed to read the post you responded to.
The GPP already saw the docs download page. He was complaining that the opensophie.org web site only had documentation in zips, and that it lacked a description and screenshots. It is a legitimate complaint. Not only did you link to the wrong website, but both websites have the same problems. The GPP did not mention that the zip files at opensophie.org require that you use sophie to read them. So you have to download about 50 MB and use a special program before you can even read the intro.
I went to the sophie websites to learn what language the original was written in, out of curiosity. But that info is not available on their website, and I was not willing to download that large file just to find out.
Interesting how people who say this: "Instead of simply recommending that you sodomize yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model - the ASP 21". The previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action." are described as "polite".
Being a criminal has excellent hours. And the job interview is easy. You never have to worry about being fired, laid off, etc, and you are responsible for your own paychecks. It's kind of like being a contractor, with the added benefit that you can choose your customers whether your customers are happy about it or not (usually not).
The main problem with those is that there are only so many questions you can ask. The spammer just needs a database with all of them, or just a significant portion. As for the simple math, that can easily be parsed and calculated.
I suppose it would make sense if you had to make an exchange of keys with someone before initiating communication. Thus, when you give out your email to people, you could give them a key that they would need in order to send you an email
What you described is called, "only giving your email to people you trust." Except we call it an e-mail address, not a key. It is already available, and does not require any sort of special software other than an e-mail client. It is a good practice for most people. Unfortunately, it does not solve the problem for people who need to receive email from strangers, such as contractors.
People play MMO's because they are fun games. Not for everybody, but lots of people enjoy playing them. However, there are some parts of the game that they don't enjoy. Boring, monotonous tasks to make their character more "experienced", or to earn money. It's called "grinding". It's only a game, and some players figure the point is to have fun, not work, so they pay for a program to do the work for them, and then they do the fun stuff themselves. The computer couldn't do the fun part anyway, because it is only a computer.
Interesting history of grinding. It originally comes from pen and paper RPGs, especially Dungeons and Dragons. Generally, each player would have a character of a certain level, and then the Dungeon Master (who was a human) would create a quest for them that wasn't too hard or too easy for their levels. When they completed the quest, each player was awarded experience points, and their characters would often get stronger, faster, etc. It was fun, and part of the game. Anything that wasn't fun, like playing a level 1 character, the DM would allow the players to skip, because he was a human being and not a machine.
Then, somebody had the bright idea to convert RPGs to computers. CRGPs were born. It included some of the things from RPGs. Including levels, experience, and usually gold. However, because the DM was a machine, it would not allow players to skip boring parts. Players would often have to walk around a forest or something, mindlessly killing bad guys to gain experience. A human DM would have made the quests a little easier if the players weren't strong enough for it, but the machine is a machine. This flaw continues in MMORPGs.
Interestingly, the role playing part of RPGs did not make it into computer RPGs, yet they still call them "role playing games". Go figure.
This is a somewhat common attack vector for Windows. A malware author creates a data/audio CD and then distributes it as an audio CD. If the victim puts it in their CD player, it plays fine*. If they put it into their Linux machine, and then play it like an audio CD it plays fine. But when they put it into their Windows machine, Windows (by default) recognizes the CD as data, and then loads the autorun program, which is a trojan horse.
Sony's rootkit a few years ago did exactly this.
* Some people here are saying that a CD player will attempt to play the data track as audio, and it will be random noise. I have never experienced this from data/audio CDs.
I was not even aware that Nvidia sold cards. Anywhere. It was my understanding that they only sell the chipsets, and other manufacturers put them into cards. I also didn't know that either Nvidia or ATI sold cards on their websites.
From the summary: "Tipsters in New York City can now send photos and video... to report crimes and quality-of-life issues such as potholes, officials announced Tuesday."
According to the summary, it looks like they are OK with that.
You have a valid point. However, I would argue that there is a large difference between expression, abuse, and advertising.
Yet I'm not sure if there's anyone in the./ crowd who will stick to their free speech principles when such principles inconvenience them personally.
You seem to think that everybody on Slashdot thinks the same about free speech, and that everybody is an extremist. There are limits to everything. I doubt that even our forefathers would have approved of advertising and abuse such as spam and telemarketers. We don't allow people to shout into bullhorns at your house in the middle of the night, nor should we.
Actually, I think bureaucracy is good. It slows politicians down, and prevents them from getting things done. It would be even better if they could go in reverse.
That said, I think that the GPP has a great idea, but I also agree that a society need leadership. Perhaps a hybrid. Something like what we have, but more power to the people, and less to the politicians. Perhaps an authoritative document that describes a bunch of stuff that the leaders can and can't do, with consequences for violating the document.
I've seen this argument before, and it is disgustingly ironic. Codenames that are unrelated to what they describe have the advantage that they can describe something else if needed. For example, it was originally assumed that Ubuntu Dapper Drake would become 6.04 LTS. However, they delayed the release for a couple of months for stability reasons, and Dapper Drake became 6.06. If they had referred to Dapper Drake as 6.04 from the start, the change would have been more difficult. Also, codenames are easier to remember, and more difficult to mis-type.
What you are suggesting is that they reduce functionality to make it "sound better", which is the opposite of professional.
Re:Are Quests in MMOGs doable?
on
Quests
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
I thought of that a long time ago. Like most player-submitted ideas for MMOs, it sounds great at first, but has some difficult to pass problems. The problem in this case is that most players will never touch these items. As they realize how difficult it is to get them, they will give up, and move on to other things. Of course, if your game is good in other ways, then maybe the "other things" they move onto is the regular dime a dozen MMO quests. MMOs are different from single player CRPGs. In a CRPG, if there is only one item, that is OK, because there is only one adventurer.
we have some of the slowest and simultaneously most expensive internet service in the world. as the richest nation in the world, and the global leader in science and technology, this should not be occurring.
check out this chart of broadband prices around the world. then take a look at this map of broadband speeds around the globe.
Your sources do not support your claim. That first link doesn't even mention the United States. It supplies it's "chart" as a jpg image, and it measures in "price ber megabit broadband speed", which doesn't even make any sense. A megabit is static, and not a speed measurement. Your second link seems to imply that United States is about on par with most of the first world. Equal or better than UK, Poland, China, and less than Japan, Sweden and New Zealand.
I'm not saying I disagree. In fact, I agree with your point, but your sources are lacking.
or do what smart businesses have done all throughout history: increase supply to satisfy demand.
That only works when there is competition. Throughout history, every cartel has attempted to spend as little resources as possible to quell the population enough that they don't complain, or revolt, and continue to pay their taxes, or fees.
Sumary of the fallacies I've seen mentioned on Slashdot so far: 1) lack of reward ($40, plus used 80GB drive worth $30-$40 new, minus shipping). 2) risky. You have to pay a deposit of $60, you have to pay shipping, and you only get the drive for 3 days. 3) You aren't allowed to take the drive apart, which, theoretically, would be necessary for EMF recovery 4) lack of publicity. Many of us didn't even know about the challenge until today. Most professionals probably will have never heard about the challenge even when it is over.
Basically, they are assuming that if nobody does the challenge, that nobody could.
The do have a valid point though. DOD 3-pass is more than enough for 99% of people. Common criminals and the FBI wouldn't recover that, and the NSA might not either. Destroying perfectly good drives is a waste of money and resources, and the practice should stop in 99% of cases.
Unfortunately, 16systems doesn't have enough funding to prove this. It would be nice if a more wealthy person/company would duplicate this challenge, but have several hard drives, pay shipping, have a reasonable reward ($5000+, the more the merrier), and be able to advertise the challenge better.
And the result is... nothing. This is an old engine, and we have had better ones released under GPL already, such as that of Quake I/II and III. Lots of work has already gone to debugging the Doom, Quake I, and Quake III engine code, and I doubt anyone wants to start over and debug something that is similar to the Doom engine, but not debugged already, like prboom or chocolate doom.
Sourceforge's TOS is way worse than that. I recently removed my project, The Gamebook Engine, because of it.
According to Sourceforge's TOS (notice it is a different link from parent's) you have to give Sourceforge the right to do anything they want with anything you publish on their servers. Even if I was willing to do that, which I am not, I wouldn't be allowed to publish things like Qt dlls (which I was) or other people's work in general. Some of the code for my project is scavenged from another GPL project, and the gamebook I converted for the project is a derivative work which I don't have full copyright for. I can't give Sourceforge permission to distribute that.
It is a shame Sourceforge's TOS was not included in the article. But maybe if it was, it would not have been posted to Slashdot.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, that saying is where I got my analogy from. My point is, "sometimes you really are looking at a nail."
Rewriting from scratch is done too often, and most of the time fixing the original would have been better. However, sometimes you really do have to rewrite from scratch. You can only polish a turd so much.
Your comment is like saying, "Never use a hammer." Sure, a hammer is inappropriate for screwing screws, and it's a poor way to open a window, and most anti-spam solutions involving a hammer are illegal, but sometimes you have a nail that you need to beat into a board.
Wow. Did you even bother to read the page you linked to? Or perhaps you failed to read the post you responded to.
The GPP already saw the docs download page. He was complaining that the opensophie.org web site only had documentation in zips, and that it lacked a description and screenshots. It is a legitimate complaint. Not only did you link to the wrong website, but both websites have the same problems. The GPP did not mention that the zip files at opensophie.org require that you use sophie to read them. So you have to download about 50 MB and use a special program before you can even read the intro.
I went to the sophie websites to learn what language the original was written in, out of curiosity. But that info is not available on their website, and I was not willing to download that large file just to find out.
Interesting how people who say this: "Instead of simply recommending that you sodomize yourself with a retractable baton, let me recommend a specific model - the ASP 21". The previous lawyers tried to use a cheaper brand, but it broke during the action." are described as "polite".
http://static.thepiratebay.org/apple_response.txt
Being a criminal has excellent hours. And the job interview is easy. You never have to worry about being fired, laid off, etc, and you are responsible for your own paychecks. It's kind of like being a contractor, with the added benefit that you can choose your customers whether your customers are happy about it or not (usually not).
The main problem with those is that there are only so many questions you can ask. The spammer just needs a database with all of them, or just a significant portion. As for the simple math, that can easily be parsed and calculated.
I suppose it would make sense if you had to make an exchange of keys with someone before initiating communication. Thus, when you give out your email to people, you could give them a key that they would need in order to send you an email
What you described is called, "only giving your email to people you trust." Except we call it an e-mail address, not a key. It is already available, and does not require any sort of special software other than an e-mail client. It is a good practice for most people. Unfortunately, it does not solve the problem for people who need to receive email from strangers, such as contractors.
People play MMO's because they are fun games. Not for everybody, but lots of people enjoy playing them. However, there are some parts of the game that they don't enjoy. Boring, monotonous tasks to make their character more "experienced", or to earn money. It's called "grinding". It's only a game, and some players figure the point is to have fun, not work, so they pay for a program to do the work for them, and then they do the fun stuff themselves. The computer couldn't do the fun part anyway, because it is only a computer.
Interesting history of grinding. It originally comes from pen and paper RPGs, especially Dungeons and Dragons. Generally, each player would have a character of a certain level, and then the Dungeon Master (who was a human) would create a quest for them that wasn't too hard or too easy for their levels. When they completed the quest, each player was awarded experience points, and their characters would often get stronger, faster, etc. It was fun, and part of the game. Anything that wasn't fun, like playing a level 1 character, the DM would allow the players to skip, because he was a human being and not a machine.
Then, somebody had the bright idea to convert RPGs to computers. CRGPs were born. It included some of the things from RPGs. Including levels, experience, and usually gold. However, because the DM was a machine, it would not allow players to skip boring parts. Players would often have to walk around a forest or something, mindlessly killing bad guys to gain experience. A human DM would have made the quests a little easier if the players weren't strong enough for it, but the machine is a machine. This flaw continues in MMORPGs.
Interestingly, the role playing part of RPGs did not make it into computer RPGs, yet they still call them "role playing games". Go figure.
This is a somewhat common attack vector for Windows. A malware author creates a data/audio CD and then distributes it as an audio CD. If the victim puts it in their CD player, it plays fine*. If they put it into their Linux machine, and then play it like an audio CD it plays fine. But when they put it into their Windows machine, Windows (by default) recognizes the CD as data, and then loads the autorun program, which is a trojan horse.
Sony's rootkit a few years ago did exactly this.
* Some people here are saying that a CD player will attempt to play the data track as audio, and it will be random noise. I have never experienced this from data/audio CDs.
I was not even aware that Nvidia sold cards. Anywhere. It was my understanding that they only sell the chipsets, and other manufacturers put them into cards. I also didn't know that either Nvidia or ATI sold cards on their websites.
Acknowledgment is the first step to recovery.
Damn Windows Lusers! Leaving their broadband-connected computers 24-7!
I run Windows XP under VirtualBox on an Ubuntu Linux machine that is connected 24x7. What does that make me?
A smart ass.
From the summary: "Tipsters in New York City can now send photos and video ... to report crimes and quality-of-life issues such as potholes, officials announced Tuesday."
According to the summary, it looks like they are OK with that.
You have a valid point. However, I would argue that there is a large difference between expression, abuse, and advertising.
Yet I'm not sure if there's anyone in the ./ crowd who will stick to their free speech principles when such principles inconvenience them personally.
You seem to think that everybody on Slashdot thinks the same about free speech, and that everybody is an extremist. There are limits to everything. I doubt that even our forefathers would have approved of advertising and abuse such as spam and telemarketers. We don't allow people to shout into bullhorns at your house in the middle of the night, nor should we.
Actually, I think bureaucracy is good. It slows politicians down, and prevents them from getting things done. It would be even better if they could go in reverse.
That said, I think that the GPP has a great idea, but I also agree that a society need leadership. Perhaps a hybrid. Something like what we have, but more power to the people, and less to the politicians. Perhaps an authoritative document that describes a bunch of stuff that the leaders can and can't do, with consequences for violating the document.
I've seen this argument before, and it is disgustingly ironic. Codenames that are unrelated to what they describe have the advantage that they can describe something else if needed. For example, it was originally assumed that Ubuntu Dapper Drake would become 6.04 LTS. However, they delayed the release for a couple of months for stability reasons, and Dapper Drake became 6.06. If they had referred to Dapper Drake as 6.04 from the start, the change would have been more difficult. Also, codenames are easier to remember, and more difficult to mis-type.
What you are suggesting is that they reduce functionality to make it "sound better", which is the opposite of professional.
I thought of that a long time ago. Like most player-submitted ideas for MMOs, it sounds great at first, but has some difficult to pass problems. The problem in this case is that most players will never touch these items. As they realize how difficult it is to get them, they will give up, and move on to other things. Of course, if your game is good in other ways, then maybe the "other things" they move onto is the regular dime a dozen MMO quests. MMOs are different from single player CRPGs. In a CRPG, if there is only one item, that is OK, because there is only one adventurer.
Yes. I know what they meant. I was using it as an example of how poor of a source it was. I suppose it was somewhat excessive.
we have some of the slowest and simultaneously most expensive internet service in the world. as the richest nation in the world, and the global leader in science and technology, this should not be occurring. check out this chart of broadband prices around the world. then take a look at this map of broadband speeds around the globe.
Your sources do not support your claim. That first link doesn't even mention the United States. It supplies it's "chart" as a jpg image, and it measures in "price ber megabit broadband speed", which doesn't even make any sense. A megabit is static, and not a speed measurement. Your second link seems to imply that United States is about on par with most of the first world. Equal or better than UK, Poland, China, and less than Japan, Sweden and New Zealand.
I'm not saying I disagree. In fact, I agree with your point, but your sources are lacking.
or do what smart businesses have done all throughout history: increase supply to satisfy demand.
That only works when there is competition. Throughout history, every cartel has attempted to spend as little resources as possible to quell the population enough that they don't complain, or revolt, and continue to pay their taxes, or fees.
That's a feature, not a bug. The hard drive will be easier for the surviving humans to retrieve if it comes back to Earth on its own.
Sumary of the fallacies I've seen mentioned on Slashdot so far:
1) lack of reward ($40, plus used 80GB drive worth $30-$40 new, minus shipping).
2) risky. You have to pay a deposit of $60, you have to pay shipping, and you only get the drive for 3 days.
3) You aren't allowed to take the drive apart, which, theoretically, would be necessary for EMF recovery
4) lack of publicity. Many of us didn't even know about the challenge until today. Most professionals probably will have never heard about the challenge even when it is over.
Basically, they are assuming that if nobody does the challenge, that nobody could.
The do have a valid point though. DOD 3-pass is more than enough for 99% of people. Common criminals and the FBI wouldn't recover that, and the NSA might not either. Destroying perfectly good drives is a waste of money and resources, and the practice should stop in 99% of cases.
Unfortunately, 16systems doesn't have enough funding to prove this. It would be nice if a more wealthy person/company would duplicate this challenge, but have several hard drives, pay shipping, have a reasonable reward ($5000+, the more the merrier), and be able to advertise the challenge better.
And the result is ... nothing. This is an old engine, and we have had better ones released under GPL already, such as that of Quake I/II and III. Lots of work has already gone to debugging the Doom, Quake I, and Quake III engine code, and I doubt anyone wants to start over and debug something that is similar to the Doom engine, but not debugged already, like prboom or chocolate doom.
Your plan is interesting. However, it fails to account for the fact that laws don't apply to large corporations any more than they do to rich people.
So what are you going to do? Read 7.8 Million pages to make a survey? This is a job for Google Fight!
"the world is better because of google" - 99.2 Million
"the world is not better because of google" - 116 Million
Clearly, Google makes the world suck.
Sourceforge's TOS is way worse than that. I recently removed my project, The Gamebook Engine, because of it.
According to Sourceforge's TOS (notice it is a different link from parent's) you have to give Sourceforge the right to do anything they want with anything you publish on their servers. Even if I was willing to do that, which I am not, I wouldn't be allowed to publish things like Qt dlls (which I was) or other people's work in general. Some of the code for my project is scavenged from another GPL project, and the gamebook I converted for the project is a derivative work which I don't have full copyright for. I can't give Sourceforge permission to distribute that.
It is a shame Sourceforge's TOS was not included in the article. But maybe if it was, it would not have been posted to Slashdot.