Those who claim that the above is an inherently bad idea that wouldn't work in any game at all, should check BZFlag.
I checked it out and played a little. Anyway. The cheats in that game appear in a controlled quantity (as flags), equally available to all. The kind of cheats the article refers to are cheats only available to a select few circumventing the rules. They're also hidden. Cheats built into the game intended to be used are called powerups, which makes the game interesting, whereas hidden cheats makes the game futile.
In order for an aimbot to work it needs access to the internal game state, particularly positions and velocities of objects in the game, which it can gleam by analyzing the data packets between server and client or by accessing in memory game data.
If all you have is a video stream, the aimbot has access to no game state. The best it could do is try to recognize objects on the screen by pixel patterns (screenscrape), which I doubt would work if everyone chose skins matching the background. It also wouldn't have access to positions of off-screen objects, which gives the aimbot its real advantage--shooting at people behind you or hidden underwater or in shadows. I think in that case any screenscraping aimbot would be more trouble than its worth as well as very inaccurate (obvious).
More and more laws are being written so that the average citizen will break them and police get to decide if they like you or not
It's kind of like original sin, but only with criminality. You are born a sinner (criminal) and spend your life paying homage ($$) to the Church (US gov't). If you don't, you're stamped blasphemer (terrorist/perp/criminal) and punished (fined) or worse excommunicated (imprisoned/deported).
Government is religion. The laws are designed to criminalize everyone and selectively punish the dissenters to maintain order and control.
With a numeric system (like ICQ), every ID up to the last known ID is guaranteed to exist or have once existed so spamming those wouldn't create as many messages to invalid IDs.
All entities - everything from the particular chair I am sitting on to objects like the Lincoln Memorial monument should have a unique digital identifier.
that airplanes are designed for what might be called simultaneous mode failures -- there is no point in having the wings significantly stronger than the fuselage, as once the fuselage breaks the wings don't do you any good, you have just been carrying too much material in the wings.
If there's no point in building wings of steel when the fuselage is made of paper mache, then make the fuselage out of the same stuff. I'd feel safer in a stronger plane that's not gonna snap in half at 30k feet because it's 1 week past the expiration date.
"...showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope..." A true thirst for knowledge will arrouse suspicion? Do we really want this? Controlling information is the first step down a nasty road.
I dunno. Where I come from an unusual interest in information outside the job scope is called a hobby. Such as taking mamba classes, attending museums, going to wine tastings, watching live performances, playing sports, becoming an amateur astronomer, visiting historical monuments, going to UFO conventions, etc.
If no one thought about race, there'd be no racism.
And yes, as many others have written, not understanding those with heavy accents is not racism. They wouldn't want _us_ answering their tech support line, so what's good for them is good for us.
You can make various arguments that talking to someone who isn't in the car requires more attention, but I think this is more than offset by the visual distraction of conversing with a passenger.
I think the reason talking on the handset is more distracting than talking to a passenger is because the passenger can see what's going on in the road and will pause if something comes up that requires quick manuevering. Plus, the passenger works as a lookout and warns for potential hazards the driver can't see.
When you talk to someone on the phone, the caller has no idea when you're in a difficult situation such as changing lanes or avoiding a box lying in the road. Unlike with a passenger, a portion of your attention always remains dedicated to the caller to satisfy their expectation that you be paying attention to them.
But we can make simulations. We can then match those simulation against past recorded data to see how well they hold up. And then we can extrapolate into the future.
Do you know what everyone who has tried this says?
They say, "Oh shit."
We can sit here and argue all day long whether this simulation is valid or that simulation is invalid and accomplish nothing because so many here just... keep... missing... the point. This topic is not whether global warming is happening, it's about whether the discussion of such is dominated by politics, which vilifies anyone who contradicts popular opinion.
I despise how global warming discussions focus so much on whether or not someone "believes", and heralding or ridiculing people for being in the right or wrong camp, rather than simply being discussions about straightforward facts.
I thought that was the point of the entire topic. Heh. That we're not allowed to objectively look at the data. That we must fit the data into the theory that global warming exists, global warming is going to destroy humanity, and USA is the sole perpetrator of global warming. That being objective means you're open-minded to every alternative theory, including ones that disprove global warming. That the mere hint of considering thinking them is a thought crime.
It kinda irritates me. I understand being frustrated with crappy outsourced tech support, but their accent has nothing to do with their skill level.
Well, when there's a strong accent you know it's not their natural language so right off the bat you know there's going to be a very high probability of having a difficult time communicating.
I've worked with a large number of H1-B VISA holders. Guess what? Communication is a problem 80 to 90% of the time (estimation provided by the Eyeball Method). I don't care if they have 3 PhD's and a 155 IQ, when you know it's going to take 15-20 minutes to get across "I like the product, but it has an intermittent problem that occurs only when the laptop has been sitting over-night plugged into the wall with the lid closed. Oh, and by the way when it does it the fan stops, runs real fast, then stops." you just feel like giving up.
Yeah those pesky scientists with their "rules" and "laws" and "theories". I agree, I find that my own personal threat to democracy is the law of gravity. My innate right to remain upright is threatened by this so-called consensus about gravity. In fact, I find the whole thing completely politicized because who dissents against the idea that gravity exists is immediately labeled a wacko and there's no room for debate on the subject.
Your post drew a parallel between the theory of gravity and the theory of global warming, which I assume was meant to demonstrate the absurdity of questioning scientific findings, particularly proven ones.
We know gravity exists due to observation and testing. A LOT of testing. We test gravity every time we get out of bed. The problem with your parallel is that we can't perform repeated tests of global warming, and the science has not been proven let alone agreed upon, and there is a lot of conflicting data; however, with gravity we can test the models repeatedly in the lab.
Your example merely demonstrated that politicization of science and scientific consensus are indeed real problems by your assumption that the scientific proof for global warming is as substantial as it is for our theories on gravity. It's not, but many people believe it is because the media told them so.
I've read the FAQ on the reasoning for the Slashdot moderation scheme and I agree with some of its concepts, but the problem I have with it is there's no clear distinction of modding for purposes of silencing & identifying trolls versus modding for agreement or flagging well written posts. My second problem is the moderation weighs negative modding equivalently to positive modding. It ought to be unbalanced towards the positive because people tend to be more aggressive when modding down. My last problem is the moderation appears to be invisible (no one knows who modded who). Of course, I haven't modded or meta-modded here so I could be wrong so I assume it's invisible. I think it should be visible to all because moderators would think twice before modding down in anger or spite.
I'm not making excuses; the Safari beta's flaws are atrociously bad, but you appear to have a double standard here.
You haven't heard my criticism of Windows. However, you mentioned "freshly installed", which is an unpatched machine. A patched Windows machine running a firewall is a lot more secure than this particular version of Safari on windows. I don't think it's a fair to compare the latest version of a browser with an unpatched operating system who's last major service pack is 3 years old.
But Windows and IE does both those things almost monthly, out of beta.
So, what did I find when I downloaded Safari? The ridiculously useful debug menu was gone!
I'm betting it's disabled to avoid frivilous bug reports. Some people will assume javascript error messages are caused by Safari bugs rather than scripting bugs.
If your faith is so easily shaken, then don't install beta software.
Wait until the bugs have been found, and install the final release.
First. I refuse to have faith when the fatal flaw involves an extremely simple usage of protocol handlers, which would be the first thing to test when testing for security.
Second. When Apple posts a direct link to one of its flagship applications on the main page of its website (http://www.apple.com), do you really expect people to understand what a beta is? It's called a beta, but it's not being treated as a beta. With normal betas, a small subset of the userbase will install, test, and use the app. Betas aren't supposed to be marketed with such fanfare. The entire point is to quietly release the beta to permit the beta testing to occur; it's not to push the app to the masses. Apple is advertising this "beta" to everyone and anyone: power user, casual user, grandma user, idiot user, manager user, etc (in order of decreasing acuity). You may know what "beta" means, but your uncle Vince who just completed a course at the public library titled "Learn the Internet 101" does not.
a company cannot guarantee that a product will have no security bugs unless they can guarantee that it will have no other unknown bugs.
Code quality is measured by bug density: bugs per thousand lines of code. Finding several severe bugs right off the bat is indicative of a fairly high bug density. Lowering bug density involves testing: black box, and white box. Apparently, Apple's idea of testing appears to be letting Dan the marketing guy give it a spin for a couple hours because he's the only one with a non-development Windows desktop. I can hear it now: "Hey, it checks out with Dan, let's PUSH the code!"
This whole thing smacks of a lack of respect for the target platform: Safari on Windows. A lack of respect for the product converts to a lack of respect from me for Apple.
That's just how it is, and no amount of whining will change that.
The only ones whining here are the Apple supporters who have long enjoyed bashing Windows users/supporters over the head with security related taunts. I think the only reason the Apple zealots are getting so upset is because this is another chink in Apple's armor. Meanwhile, the rest of us are criticizing Apple for very good reason--that this is the result of sloppiness and carelessness for the consumer.
Apple users: get used to this. Increased popularity means increased scrutiny.
Hmm. I found it to be rather speedy on XP. On a lowly AMD 1.1 GHz with 1GB RAM. Fully patched.
If not for the super thin 1 pixel wide left and bottom window edges; the resize issue as you and others mentioned; the very poor font smoothing that I could not turn off; and, these security problems, I'd have given it a fair chance over the coming week.
Well the point of a Beta release is to increase the userbase so as to increase the amount of testing.
Yea. Increase the userbase. Of course, they just did the opposite and scared them away. Lesson here: never show your unfinished work. A first impression only comes once.
You just have to accept that if a company has said "this is a beta release, it will have bugs", that it will have bugs - all types of bugs, not just "safe" bugs.
A bug that lets any old script kiddie put up a page that can execute del/S c:\* on my PC is beyond the level of anyone's expectation of a bug. Why would I bother with Safari now? Sure. They'll release another, new, improved beta... bug free, but will I trust them?
No.
Even with a free beta I have a reasonable level of expectation. That the program not destroy my machine with basic usage. That the program not allow remote execution. That the program provide some core functionality as advertised. This version of Safari is well below those expectations.
They released a beta version of a program with the usual disclaimers about how it's not finished, and should not be used in a production environment, and are not forcing anyone to use it. What's your problem?
Nobody forces anyone to use Firefox... but the bugs are taken pretty seriously and get fixed pretty quickly with that one. Huh.
Even if your software is free, you really oughta do your best to make sure it's not crippled with fatal security holes--discovered within hours I might add.
Come on. You have to admit remote execution of any cmd is pretty bad even for a beta. This ain't your run of the mill bug, like a UI glitch or rendering type of bug. It makes the beta unusable and thus not a very useful beta. (Unless you're testing how your own trusted website looks under Safari.)
Slashdot Mirror
Powerup != Cheat.
In order for an aimbot to work it needs access to the internal game state, particularly positions and velocities of objects in the game, which it can gleam by analyzing the data packets between server and client or by accessing in memory game data.
If all you have is a video stream, the aimbot has access to no game state. The best it could do is try to recognize objects on the screen by pixel patterns (screenscrape), which I doubt would work if everyone chose skins matching the background. It also wouldn't have access to positions of off-screen objects, which gives the aimbot its real advantage--shooting at people behind you or hidden underwater or in shadows. I think in that case any screenscraping aimbot would be more trouble than its worth as well as very inaccurate (obvious).
Government is religion. The laws are designed to criminalize everyone and selectively punish the dissenters to maintain order and control.
Of course, I suppose that's why you chose 26 as your limit. "bob0" through "bob25", which probably has a nearly 100% chance of existing.
Heh.
name + (integer)
is not guaranteed to exist so spamming a large number of non-existing IDs would trigger an alert in the system managing the IDs.
Ex: "bob2917" isn't likely to exist, whereas "2917", "29170", "291700"... are.
With a numeric system (like ICQ), every ID up to the last known ID is guaranteed to exist or have once existed so spamming those wouldn't create as many messages to invalid IDs.
{
spam(i);
}
It's the reason I quit using ICQ years ago.
Of course, you by yourself won't have much impact but there would be if 1% of Slashdot's reader base did.
i.e. an interest in culture.
If no one thought about race, there'd be no racism.
And yes, as many others have written, not understanding those with heavy accents is not racism. They wouldn't want _us_ answering their tech support line, so what's good for them is good for us.
When you talk to someone on the phone, the caller has no idea when you're in a difficult situation such as changing lanes or avoiding a box lying in the road. Unlike with a passenger, a portion of your attention always remains dedicated to the caller to satisfy their expectation that you be paying attention to them.
I've worked with a large number of H1-B VISA holders. Guess what? Communication is a problem 80 to 90% of the time (estimation provided by the Eyeball Method). I don't care if they have 3 PhD's and a 155 IQ, when you know it's going to take 15-20 minutes to get across "I like the product, but it has an intermittent problem that occurs only when the laptop has been sitting over-night plugged into the wall with the lid closed. Oh, and by the way when it does it the fan stops, runs real fast, then stops." you just feel like giving up.
We know gravity exists due to observation and testing. A LOT of testing. We test gravity every time we get out of bed. The problem with your parallel is that we can't perform repeated tests of global warming, and the science has not been proven let alone agreed upon, and there is a lot of conflicting data; however, with gravity we can test the models repeatedly in the lab.
Your example merely demonstrated that politicization of science and scientific consensus are indeed real problems by your assumption that the scientific proof for global warming is as substantial as it is for our theories on gravity. It's not, but many people believe it is because the media told them so.
...I don't even try. It's pointless.
I've read the FAQ on the reasoning for the Slashdot moderation scheme and I agree with some of its concepts, but the problem I have with it is there's no clear distinction of modding for purposes of silencing & identifying trolls versus modding for agreement or flagging well written posts. My second problem is the moderation weighs negative modding equivalently to positive modding. It ought to be unbalanced towards the positive because people tend to be more aggressive when modding down. My last problem is the moderation appears to be invisible (no one knows who modded who). Of course, I haven't modded or meta-modded here so I could be wrong so I assume it's invisible. I think it should be visible to all because moderators would think twice before modding down in anger or spite.
Second. When Apple posts a direct link to one of its flagship applications on the main page of its website (http://www.apple.com), do you really expect people to understand what a beta is? It's called a beta, but it's not being treated as a beta. With normal betas, a small subset of the userbase will install, test, and use the app. Betas aren't supposed to be marketed with such fanfare. The entire point is to quietly release the beta to permit the beta testing to occur; it's not to push the app to the masses. Apple is advertising this "beta" to everyone and anyone: power user, casual user, grandma user, idiot user, manager user, etc (in order of decreasing acuity). You may know what "beta" means, but your uncle Vince who just completed a course at the public library titled "Learn the Internet 101" does not.
Code quality is measured by bug density: bugs per thousand lines of code. Finding several severe bugs right off the bat is indicative of a fairly high bug density. Lowering bug density involves testing: black box, and white box. Apparently, Apple's idea of testing appears to be letting Dan the marketing guy give it a spin for a couple hours because he's the only one with a non-development Windows desktop. I can hear it now: "Hey, it checks out with Dan, let's PUSH the code!"
This whole thing smacks of a lack of respect for the target platform: Safari on Windows. A lack of respect for the product converts to a lack of respect from me for Apple.
The only ones whining here are the Apple supporters who have long enjoyed bashing Windows users/supporters over the head with security related taunts. I think the only reason the Apple zealots are getting so upset is because this is another chink in Apple's armor. Meanwhile, the rest of us are criticizing Apple for very good reason--that this is the result of sloppiness and carelessness for the consumer.
Apple users: get used to this. Increased popularity means increased scrutiny.
Btw, criticism != whining.
Hmm. I found it to be rather speedy on XP. On a lowly AMD 1.1 GHz with 1GB RAM. Fully patched.
If not for the super thin 1 pixel wide left and bottom window edges; the resize issue as you and others mentioned; the very poor font smoothing that I could not turn off; and, these security problems, I'd have given it a fair chance over the coming week.
A bug that lets any old script kiddie put up a page that can execute del
No.
Even with a free beta I have a reasonable level of expectation. That the program not destroy my machine with basic usage. That the program not allow remote execution. That the program provide some core functionality as advertised. This version of Safari is well below those expectations.
Even if your software is free, you really oughta do your best to make sure it's not crippled with fatal security holes--discovered within hours I might add.
..."that you should expect bugs in a BETA"
Come on. You have to admit remote execution of any cmd is pretty bad even for a beta. This ain't your run of the mill bug, like a UI glitch or rendering type of bug. It makes the beta unusable and thus not a very useful beta. (Unless you're testing how your own trusted website looks under Safari.)