I'm pretty surprised that they managed to get all these out on the start. I expected one or two good games, but whoa, Descent? Earthworm Jim? Fallout? Gothic? MDK? Operation Flashpoint? Shogo?
It's like I died and got zombified in the better part of the 90's!
Ok, on really simple protocols, like HTTP or FTP, maybe - but most, if not all, p2p traffic is safe, i think. This is of course because of the chunky nature of transmission - you can't really tell what part of the file went through your pipe just by looking at it, and since parts are sent at random, you cannot rebuild the file with your chunks without guiding information, be it a torrent file, a list of parts for emule, or whatever else there is. And you need the whole file to get your hash-check. That's one. Two: encryption totally kills the effort, as the ISP can in no way examine your file without interfering with your transfer, and SSL exists solely to protect you from this.
Even if my line of thinking is really misguided here, this would require lots and lots of processing power - i mean, on a routing line with a hundred users on one end, it's thousands of hash-checks to be made for every stupid rebuilt file - both processes of course painfully CPU-eating, unless you want false-positives, since you didn't bother to use a proper hashing algorithm.
All in all, this looks to me like a terrible waste of money.
After checking it out, I must agree that it went on a downward spiral - the first year of releases was mostly fun (the internals were especially good!), then it all went to hell, as it's lua scripts started to over-check the db files for visual flaws, making the whole process sluggish. The 0.2.0 version (which was released two years after the first one) started showing all these nag-screens about your fishing/cooking/first-aid skills not being used at all (who the hell has time for that?). The interface got really cluttered around 0.4.2, and also the developers decided on a god-awful bright yellow design for it - you just couldn't look at it anymore without losing your eyeballs. I held myself tough for the 0.5.3 "Middle release", but after that, i just couldn't go on. I admit, i miss the entertainment features of this addon, but i simply will not tolerate all this trouble. I tried deinstalling it, but - for some unfathomed reason - it decided to take half of the other addons with it. My whole Gatherer database was split in half because of that stupid addon!
Advanced music analyzing isn't new. There's software out there that can already successfully identify instruments, chords, progressions and even whole musical concepts, so classifying them by genre, intensiveness, instrument set and the like is just a querying problem.
Now, GENERATING music with math - that's where the fun begins. I've seen lots of approaches already, most of the successful ones based on fractals and powers-of-two, though I admit that they work only because of certain hardcoded "musical ideas", like chord progressions, basic melody sequences etc. Making a fully autonomous algorithm decide what it should do to progress the tune - THAT's something I'd love to see.
This mechanism would be too exploitable. Why not code bots that would push your own site/agenda/whatever, and wash down all the rest of the results? It's been done before. No amount of clever code protection has ever stopped TEH HAXXORZ (to distinguish from "hackers";) ) before. And even if nobody would be up to taming this beast code-wise, we all know how eager people are to solve captchas for money - why not make them:thumb up: your selected result?
I'm sorry Google, i'd prefer to stay with your cold, unfeeling algorithms, that at least give me a good representation of search results.
Also, pirates do it for fun. No, really, they do. Read some nfos from respectable groups like Razor1911, Deviance or Fairlight, and you're bound to find a note on "why" etc. They also tell warez-users to go buy the stuff they pirate. "If you like it, buy the game - we did!", or something in this context.
So how this affects the legality of AMVs or collections of 30sec or less shorts in their style? The latter case is of particular interest to me, since I've made one, uploaded it to Youtube and it got deleted "by request of the music publisher". After that I lived in a bit of insecurity that my efforts at some demoscene-oriented jokes will be the financial death of me.
(Though admittedly, it was a bit crap, so I see reason in there;) )
Ooo, instant love! Thanks for that one, too bad they don't have these crap whachyacallthem "yeerapean" models with the really big return key, short right shift and the backslash to the right of the right shift key. Sorta like this thing: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Qwertz-si.svg/540px-Qwertz-si.svg.png but without the additional key to the left of backspace (meaning a longer backspace key). This is how my ol'skoo IBMish clone is layed out, but I guess you can't have everything;) .
While i realize that they are indeed useful to one skilled with their use, I think i would waste a lot more time to just get the feel of 'em being there than actually doing anything productive, since they'd get in my way a lot, make me angry etc. I feel I remain quite fast working with just a few key combinations and shortcuts more, and have no need for further improvement, at least for the time being. Truth to be told though, I don't code much, mostly i just write stupid game reviews, so nothing really serious, but, eh, what the hell;) .
It's not that I'm afraid of change, I just like to cling on to something that actually works as long as it works:) .
Why don't they sell keyboards without these stupid windows-keys? I keep my old IBMish clone keyboard in top shape just so I don't have to endure getting used to such a gap in-between of Ctrl and Alt, and a much shorter space. I have no use for these additional keys, and I bet I'm not the only guy around who despises them. Why aren't old-style keyboards on the market? That's what I want to know.
(And yes, I realize this is probably a years-old question)
This is, of course, correct, but while we are not a significant part of consumers out there, well, there are sure a lot of us anyway:) . This is why picketing might have some success, but it would of course require lots of organizing and thinking through. I am looking right now at the Anonymous protests. Last time I've checked, there were a lot more anti-MPAA/RIAA blokes around the internet than/b/tards, EDiots and others who joined their protests. My point being, if the *chans were able to muster such large numbers, i think we could, too. We just require a bit more, forgive the term, "nerdrage":) .
We are not "the consumer". We are nerds who participate in friendly discussion on an Internet News Site. That means that we are just a tiny, microscopic fraction of all consumers everywhere (or, in this case, in the US) and, as such, have no power over the rest of the consumers. Thus, preaching like "Vote with your wallets!" HERE will not accomplish anything - we already know this (though most of us probably don't care). The only thing we CAN do is raise awareness - and somehow, I don't see any big protest signs on the streets criticising MAFIAA for their actions.
To sum it up: Why don't we actually DO something about it, not stand idle and repeat the old phrases that every one of us heard a dozen times?
If this is indeed the only protection, it strikes me as totally unsafe - no external storage of keys/hashes/passes/whatever? The best it would do is protect you for the next couple of days before some creative hackers figure out how to extract the keys from the drive.
Sorry for being so ungoogley (no time at the moment, stuck working), but how does it work? Does it use a separate hardware decryption mechanism, or some form of driver/software combo?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm pretty surprised that they managed to get all these out on the start. I expected one or two good games, but whoa, Descent? Earthworm Jim? Fallout? Gothic? MDK? Operation Flashpoint? Shogo?
It's like I died and got zombified in the better part of the 90's!
I think I'm going to need an easier, car-based analogy to fully understand this.
Ok, on really simple protocols, like HTTP or FTP, maybe - but most, if not all, p2p traffic is safe, i think. This is of course because of the chunky nature of transmission - you can't really tell what part of the file went through your pipe just by looking at it, and since parts are sent at random, you cannot rebuild the file with your chunks without guiding information, be it a torrent file, a list of parts for emule, or whatever else there is. And you need the whole file to get your hash-check. That's one. Two: encryption totally kills the effort, as the ISP can in no way examine your file without interfering with your transfer, and SSL exists solely to protect you from this.
Even if my line of thinking is really misguided here, this would require lots and lots of processing power - i mean, on a routing line with a hundred users on one end, it's thousands of hash-checks to be made for every stupid rebuilt file - both processes of course painfully CPU-eating, unless you want false-positives, since you didn't bother to use a proper hashing algorithm.
All in all, this looks to me like a terrible waste of money.
After checking it out, I must agree that it went on a downward spiral - the first year of releases was mostly fun (the internals were especially good!), then it all went to hell, as it's lua scripts started to over-check the db files for visual flaws, making the whole process sluggish. The 0.2.0 version (which was released two years after the first one) started showing all these nag-screens about your fishing/cooking/first-aid skills not being used at all (who the hell has time for that?). The interface got really cluttered around 0.4.2, and also the developers decided on a god-awful bright yellow design for it - you just couldn't look at it anymore without losing your eyeballs. I held myself tough for the 0.5.3 "Middle release", but after that, i just couldn't go on. I admit, i miss the entertainment features of this addon, but i simply will not tolerate all this trouble. I tried deinstalling it, but - for some unfathomed reason - it decided to take half of the other addons with it. My whole Gatherer database was split in half because of that stupid addon!
What is this "wife" thingy you're referring to? A cool interface addon maybe! I'll go google it!
Advanced music analyzing isn't new. There's software out there that can already successfully identify instruments, chords, progressions and even whole musical concepts, so classifying them by genre, intensiveness, instrument set and the like is just a querying problem.
Now, GENERATING music with math - that's where the fun begins. I've seen lots of approaches already, most of the successful ones based on fractals and powers-of-two, though I admit that they work only because of certain hardcoded "musical ideas", like chord progressions, basic melody sequences etc. Making a fully autonomous algorithm decide what it should do to progress the tune - THAT's something I'd love to see.
...messing with god knows what!
Gordon, what the hell were you thinking, pushing that crate in front of the descending laser shield!?
Hey there, big computer companies!
I'll gladly take ANY old computer hardware that still works! Finally a chance to replace that old 8bit ISA graphics card... maybe even the FPU! SWEET!
This mechanism would be too exploitable. Why not code bots that would push your own site/agenda/whatever, and wash down all the rest of the results? It's been done before. No amount of clever code protection has ever stopped TEH HAXXORZ (to distinguish from "hackers" ;) ) before. And even if nobody would be up to taming this beast code-wise, we all know how eager people are to solve captchas for money - why not make them :thumb up: your selected result?
I'm sorry Google, i'd prefer to stay with your cold, unfeeling algorithms, that at least give me a good representation of search results.
...because you touch yourself at night!
Try a flashlight!
Also, pirates do it for fun. No, really, they do. Read some nfos from respectable groups like Razor1911, Deviance or Fairlight, and you're bound to find a note on "why" etc. They also tell warez-users to go buy the stuff they pirate. "If you like it, buy the game - we did!", or something in this context.
I think H2O's group motto will answer this one:
"Try before you buy!"
Either start making games on par with the demos you release (quality-wise, anyway), or make the prices on them lunch-money.
So how this affects the legality of AMVs or collections of 30sec or less shorts in their style? The latter case is of particular interest to me, since I've made one, uploaded it to Youtube and it got deleted "by request of the music publisher". After that I lived in a bit of insecurity that my efforts at some demoscene-oriented jokes will be the financial death of me.
;) )
(Though admittedly, it was a bit crap, so I see reason in there
Ooo, instant love! Thanks for that one, too bad they don't have these crap whachyacallthem "yeerapean" models with the really big return key, short right shift and the backslash to the right of the right shift key. Sorta like this thing: ;) .
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Qwertz-si.svg/540px-Qwertz-si.svg.png
but without the additional key to the left of backspace (meaning a longer backspace key). This is how my ol'skoo IBMish clone is layed out, but I guess you can't have everything
While i realize that they are indeed useful to one skilled with their use, I think i would waste a lot more time to just get the feel of 'em being there than actually doing anything productive, since they'd get in my way a lot, make me angry etc. I feel I remain quite fast working with just a few key combinations and shortcuts more, and have no need for further improvement, at least for the time being. Truth to be told though, I don't code much, mostly i just write stupid game reviews, so nothing really serious, but, eh, what the hell ;) .
It's not that I'm afraid of change, I just like to cling on to something that actually works as long as it works :) .
Thank you, but I think I'll remain here with my command line interface ;) .
Why don't they sell keyboards without these stupid windows-keys? I keep my old IBMish clone keyboard in top shape just so I don't have to endure getting used to such a gap in-between of Ctrl and Alt, and a much shorter space. I have no use for these additional keys, and I bet I'm not the only guy around who despises them. Why aren't old-style keyboards on the market? That's what I want to know.
(And yes, I realize this is probably a years-old question)
1. Buy cheaper disposable movie.
2. Rip it to harddrive.
3. Dispose of movie.
4. ???????
5. PROFIT!
So I guess I won't upgrade my motherboard next year...
This is, of course, correct, but while we are not a significant part of consumers out there, well, there are sure a lot of us anyway :) . This is why picketing might have some success, but it would of course require lots of organizing and thinking through. I am looking right now at the Anonymous protests. Last time I've checked, there were a lot more anti-MPAA/RIAA blokes around the internet than /b/tards, EDiots and others who joined their protests. My point being, if the *chans were able to muster such large numbers, i think we could, too. We just require a bit more, forgive the term, "nerdrage" :) .
Just to point out:
:) )
We are not "the consumer". We are nerds who participate in friendly discussion on an Internet News Site. That means that we are just a tiny, microscopic fraction of all consumers everywhere (or, in this case, in the US) and, as such, have no power over the rest of the consumers. Thus, preaching like "Vote with your wallets!" HERE will not accomplish anything - we already know this (though most of us probably don't care). The only thing we CAN do is raise awareness - and somehow, I don't see any big protest signs on the streets criticising MAFIAA for their actions.
To sum it up: Why don't we actually DO something about it, not stand idle and repeat the old phrases that every one of us heard a dozen times?
(Reply: The sun. IT BURNS USSSS!
Yeah, like that'll ever happen...
If this is indeed the only protection, it strikes me as totally unsafe - no external storage of keys/hashes/passes/whatever? The best it would do is protect you for the next couple of days before some creative hackers figure out how to extract the keys from the drive.
Sorry for being so ungoogley (no time at the moment, stuck working), but how does it work? Does it use a separate hardware decryption mechanism, or some form of driver/software combo?