I wish I had modpoints - there is always this conception that it takes talent to make remixes and mashups. While, no doubt some of it is certainly worthy of "talent" as a description, the majority, especially the popular ones, are simply devoid and bereft of any talent or skill at all. They (the creators) are no more worthy of being called "musicians" as the dog that howls or the cat that screeches.
Be careful - IIRC, I got modded into oblivion for saying that "s/ware devs want to abstract away from the problem and towards the technology" when discussing the layer upon layer of frameworks that existed in a Java project.
Apparently, one poster even thought I I should have used the word "synergistic" in there somewhere. IME, the only reason frameworks are stacked one on top of another until 12 deep, seemed to be fixing broken architecture by adding anothr layer, not by simply fixing the existing layer.
I'm also self-thought (shameless plug over here), and would welcome a chance to have a mchine grade me (which is, in effect, what this is). If I play a piece twice, I have to listen to them both side-by-side to decide which one came out better - very time-consuming. I'd rather simply have a machine score me on accuracy.
(Actually, with a real guitar, they can probably also score you on improv skills:-))
Yes they do. A reseller brick-and-mortar store would have *printed* tickets. Unless MS is deliberately neglecting to keep track of which codes have been printed, they have a record of which codes have been already printed - those codes would be exempt from the double-checking.
It's quite possible that the set of generated codes on the website overlap with the set of codes on printed tickets, in which case I happily concede the argument to your favour, but my understanding is that the codes are different (due to being only 160 points on the website, but no 160 points on any printed tickets)
(I'm actually quite drunk at this point, so perhaps I'm missing your argument, if so - forgive me - I'm not being deliberately obtuse! Also, consider that an excuse if I'm not making much sense right now - sorry:-))
I wish I had modpoints, but I wasted them all on some stupid story when drunk (still drunk, so perhaps thats not a good comparison:-))
I'm making a note here to implement this soon (too good of an idea to simply forget); how should I credit you for it? "Tom Hudson"? "tomhudson (43916) from slashdot post, March 11-2011"? Let me know.
(ps. Yes, I actually am a researcher, but maintain my own blog of trivial research - see my sig for a link; perhaps you won't want your name associated with the type of trivial research on my blog?)
Kind Regards
At which point does the "guessing" come in? This is how double-entry book-keeping works... you reconcile the stock (in this case points) with the bank statements of deposits. There is no guessing. What OP said was that you could narrow it down so you don't have to reconcile for the entire population, just reconcile for a subset of them.
Ask your average PC owner what level of PixelShader their graphics card supports. Or what half the other terms on the "system requirements" list even means. Or why they should need to know.
Meanwhile they can go into a store, get a game box that says "Playstation 3" on it and know it will work immediately on their PS3 console.
Yeah, right. I go into a store, get a game box that says "PC game", and it works out the box, too, you know. I purchased >20 games in the last three years and every single one worked out the box. I don't know what graphics card I've got, or what processor, etc... The machine was fairly top-end three years ago, but games I buy *today* work very well, including games like Starcraft2.
That argument *used* to be true, but now it isn't when even bottom end hardware can handle most games.
hey're not going to replace traditional games, but there's room for both!
Of course there is - the combination of
wide distribution,
quick+easy development,
ability to add advertisements and,
very importantly, no requirement to download something that runs locally
is a sure-fire recipe for thousands of little games that you play for a few minutes before leaving it forever. Which isn't a problem for me - someone else will be along in a minute.
This shameless plug, for example, took me a full working day to write. Bear in mind that the last time I used javascript for anything other than menu mouse-overs was in 1999/2000. Fair enough, one feature still remains to be implemented (and I may even do that one day:-)), but if I attempted the same thing using some other platform (other than http/javascript), then:
It would've taken more than a single day to develop
I would not have the option of enabling/disabling ads easily
The user would have to complete two steps in order to try (download, then play), instead of single-click-play
Potential users may never find it in a google search. Now it's indexed properly, and via the ad placement, google knows about it.
Fair enough, I won't be able to write Far Cry at all in current browser platforms, but I wasn't going to devote a year of dev to a game, anyway
However "X is less notable than Y, and X is still there!" is not a persuasive argument for keeping Y or deleting X. The whole issue has to be addressed.
Actually it is.
Every civilised country in the world that has a justice system relies on the "precedent" argument. IOW, the finest minds in the history of mankind has found value in ensuring that any judgement being made should be more or less in line with previous judgements. The wikipedia problem can be solved easily by recognising precedents and previous judgements.
(2) developing tools for cheating in-game, ala aimbots that're easily adapted to new games,
Well, what did I as a PS3 gamer do to deserve this?
Well, you're funding those idiots, but that's your right, and I won't judge you for it. However, its the attackers rights to take their kit apart and share the info as they see fit, and the cheaters right to try to game the system. Sony is the one who should be protecting *you* in a technical manner, and not by simply trampling over non-customers rights.
This is precisely the reason why hackers are despised right now by most PS3 owners.
I couldn't care less about them making emulators, games, knockoffs or even copies of games, installing linux, xbmc or using the console for other awesome stuff, but what I do care about is that my gaming experience is being affected by what they do. I am not Sony, nor am I fan of Sony. I choose the PS3 because I like to play games without hassle once in a while, and in my experience, Microsoft is by far the more evil company.
So, about retaliation:
(1) Fight the DMCA. This is the real problem, isn't it?
(2) Stop buying Sony products.
(3) Stop whining. You (american hackers) knew full well that this was illegal in your country and didn't give a shit about getting caught.
This is how society and the market works - if enough gamers are pissed that gaming on a PS3 is a waste of time due to cheaters, then Sony makes less money. If Sony makes less money, then they may look into stopping the cheaters via methods other than simply bludgeoning non-cheaters with the full force of civil law.
While I certainly don't side with the poster you replied to, I would've been happier if it were double-blind. As it was, the *researchers* knew which phone was on and which wasn't. They should have simply randomly switched one phone on, and not standardised on the right.
Your application would run within an application framework, which runs on an Application Server, which runs on a JVM, which runs on an OS, which then gets deployed into a node in some cloud. All to solve some problem that's already been solved.
Sometimes I look at the crap that is most java enterprise development, and wonder what the hell is preventing the load of manure from collapsing under its own weight - then I realise that that is why it takes a minimum of a dev-team of at least 6 people to do *anything* at all, within this app-framework, within the app-server, within the jvm....
Is someone forcing you to use these frameworks?
Yes.
These various frameworks hold much value to those that have need of them (such as enterprises, for which it was intended), otherwise they wouldn't exist.
I find that to be an illogical argument - namely, that their very existence is a result of them adding much value. Just because something *exists* does not mean that it is "holds much value". Lots of things exist, that have very little value.
Just because you don't need them to for your particular app space doesn't mean they are "crap". It's easy to "dis" a technology that you don't understand. Generally, true appreciation (or educated criticism) of a given technology only comes with at least a rudimentary understanding of why things are the way they are.
My understanding of why the java enterprise space is the way it is, is (I hope) more than rudimentary. Why do you need an app framework? Why, so that your enterprise can readily and easily have new logic added to it? Why does your new logic get monstrous xml-files? To properly specify the behaviour of the new module, of course. But the xml file is too large and unwieldy to massage? Not a problem - lets create a framework and/or more modules that lets us edit *any* xml file. Why does your module *need* the app framework? Because the app framework supplies a basic architecture for pluggable modules (configured by xml, natch!) Wait, if thats the case, where's the reason for the application server? So that we can run multiple pluggable applications and/or frameworks that each get configured with a different xml file. Why do we need to run all of this? Because business logic is complex!!!!
See, here's my take - you see a problem, you write a general solution that is made specific by configuration parameters? No problem. You see a problem and write a module to solve that problem that gets used within a wider framework? No problem. You see a problem, and write a general solution to be used in a very specific framework, which results in a different problem, that gets a different solution, that results in a different problem, that gets a different solution... etc ad nauseum.
(Yes, I've had to deal with this recently and am still sore that, of the entire codebase, a mere 1.2% LoC were devoted to actually solving the business problem - most of the code was spent inheriting, specifying interfaces, dumped in xml config files, or xml build files, doing weird reflection-fu at runtime for little to no actual gain in business logic, doing equally strange things with long chains of inherited classes (with each class only getting subclassed once, which sort of brings up the question of why separate the classes
in the first place)).
The JAINSLEE is a good example of artificial complexity in action.
Uhm. Have you ever had a thought that 'solved' problems tend to be unsolved in reality?
Yes . Yes I have. However, when the "problems" being solved are problems caused by using the tech in the first place, then I've little sympathy. The enterprise "java app" is actually a plugin to a framework which runs on an application server. To get your code to compile/test/debug cycle you need all 3. Not really a problem, until you find out that each of them have their own rats nest of xml configs, in not-quite-readable form. But not a problem, because yet another 3 plugins exist to provides a web-frontend to each of those java stacks. Of course, you end up subclassing a class that has already been subclassed 8 times, with 4 different xml configs.
The "complexity" introduced is entirely artificial, and results in a recursive nightmare of "we need to write $Y to solve $X", when $X was a result of "we need to write $X to solve $Z". There is no more complexity in the majority of problems that java enterprise stacks gets used for than there was before, only now it takes an army of devs 3 years to develop the stack, then an entirely different army gets assigned to maintain it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for more abstraction, only the problem I see with all of these chained stacks is that they are abstracting *away* from the solution and towards a technology, and not abstracting towards the solution and away from the technology.
15 years ago most of Java enterprise stuff would have been written in crashy C++ with a lot of impenetrable CORBA mappings and weird UI frameworks. Or maybe if you are 'lucky' in impenetrable COBOL.
And actually, I can write software in Java (and now in Scala) single-handedly faster than several Python programmers. Because I know how to use all these tons of frameworks.
And I can solve most problems faster in Lisp than in Java, C++, python or most other things. What was your point?
Your application would run within an application framework, which runs on an Application Server, which runs on a JVM, which runs on an OS, which then gets deployed into a node in some cloud. All to solve some problem that's already been solved.
Sometimes I look at the crap that is most java enterprise development, and wonder what the hell is preventing the load of manure from collapsing under its own weight - then I realise that that is why it takes a minimum of a dev-team of at least 6 people to do *anything* at all, within this app-framework, within the app-server, within the jvm....
Nope. Never. She did charity work (I made enough for both of us when we got married).
She volunteered at the SPCA and various soup kitchens for the homeless in those 11 odd years.
She never once turned bitchy to her friends or family. She frequently helped out (pro bono - she's a lawyer) in cases involving street children. She frequently baked goodies for me to take to work to share with colleagues.
In *all* of the years I've known her, she never *once* had anything bad to say about anyone. Fair enough, she had a quick temper, but I honestly cannot say she ever tried or threatened harm to any human (or other creature). p>
Of course, you can go ahead and say "you were just blind", but the fact is, I'm not the only one who thought she was genuinely nice - hell, when the separation first happened, my parents thought it was something *I* did, as they could not believe that she was capable of all those things (she also tried to put my dogs down while I was in jail - I managed to save two of them - the third had an unknown fate).
For the first few weeks, my parents watched me like a hawk, certain that I was cheating on my wife, or something similar... they asked me if I was on drugs, if I beat her, etc... sometimes I get the impression that they still can't believe that she is capable of actually putting my dog down while I was in jail.
All in all, she was a good person, and (until the last few weeks) a good wife as well. I think she may have quietly had a breakdown in the last few weeks (she miscarried 2 months before the separation), and all I did was argue about the symptoms I could see. I should have got her help.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish I had modpoints - there is always this conception that it takes talent to make remixes and mashups. While, no doubt some of it is certainly worthy of "talent" as a description, the majority, especially the popular ones, are simply devoid and bereft of any talent or skill at all. They (the creators) are no more worthy of being called "musicians" as the dog that howls or the cat that screeches.
I remember 2M :-)
<snipped everything I agree with> and there are only 8 basic musical notes.
7
Be careful - IIRC, I got modded into oblivion for saying that "s/ware devs want to abstract away from the problem and towards the technology" when discussing the layer upon layer of frameworks that existed in a Java project.
Apparently, one poster even thought I I should have used the word "synergistic" in there somewhere. IME, the only reason frameworks are stacked one on top of another until 12 deep, seemed to be fixing broken architecture by adding anothr layer, not by simply fixing the existing layer.
I'm also self-thought (shameless plug over here), and would welcome a chance to have a mchine grade me (which is, in effect, what this is). If I play a piece twice, I have to listen to them both side-by-side to decide which one came out better - very time-consuming. I'd rather simply have a machine score me on accuracy.
:-))
(Actually, with a real guitar, they can probably also score you on improv skills
.[...] and Egypt on the brink of collapse.
Great. Thousands of years later and nothing has changed.
I've been using Linux as my primary desktop since Redhat 7.2, so about a decade.
Noob ;-)
Yes they do. A reseller brick-and-mortar store would have *printed* tickets. Unless MS is deliberately neglecting to keep track of which codes have been printed, they have a record of which codes have been already printed - those codes would be exempt from the double-checking.
:-))
It's quite possible that the set of generated codes on the website overlap with the set of codes on printed tickets, in which case I happily concede the argument to your favour, but my understanding is that the codes are different (due to being only 160 points on the website, but no 160 points on any printed tickets)
(I'm actually quite drunk at this point, so perhaps I'm missing your argument, if so - forgive me - I'm not being deliberately obtuse! Also, consider that an excuse if I'm not making much sense right now - sorry
Kind Regards
I wish I had modpoints, but I wasted them all on some stupid story when drunk (still drunk, so perhaps thats not a good comparison :-))
I'm making a note here to implement this soon (too good of an idea to simply forget); how should I credit you for it? "Tom Hudson"? "tomhudson (43916) from slashdot post, March 11-2011"? Let me know.
(ps. Yes, I actually am a researcher, but maintain my own blog of trivial research - see my sig for a link; perhaps you won't want your name associated with the type of trivial research on my blog?) Kind Regards
At which point does the "guessing" come in? This is how double-entry book-keeping works ... you reconcile the stock (in this case points) with the bank statements of deposits. There is no guessing. What OP said was that you could narrow it down so you don't have to reconcile for the entire population, just reconcile for a subset of them.
Ask your average PC owner what level of PixelShader their graphics card supports. Or what half the other terms on the "system requirements" list even means. Or why they should need to know.
Meanwhile they can go into a store, get a game box that says "Playstation 3" on it and know it will work immediately on their PS3 console.
Yeah, right. I go into a store, get a game box that says "PC game", and it works out the box, too, you know. I purchased >20 games in the last three years and every single one worked out the box. I don't know what graphics card I've got, or what processor, etc ... The machine was fairly top-end three years ago, but games I buy *today* work very well, including games like Starcraft2.
That argument *used* to be true, but now it isn't when even bottom end hardware can handle most games.
hey're not going to replace traditional games, but there's room for both!
Of course there is - the combination of
is a sure-fire recipe for thousands of little games that you play for a few minutes before leaving it forever. Which isn't a problem for me - someone else will be along in a minute.
This shameless plug, for example, took me a full working day to write. Bear in mind that the last time I used javascript for anything other than menu mouse-overs was in 1999/2000. Fair enough, one feature still remains to be implemented (and I may even do that one day :-)), but if I attempted the same thing using some other platform (other than http/javascript), then:
Fair enough, I won't be able to write Far Cry at all in current browser platforms, but I wasn't going to devote a year of dev to a game, anyway
"NextBox" sounds good.
However "X is less notable than Y, and X is still there!" is not a persuasive argument for keeping Y or deleting X. The whole issue has to be addressed.
Actually it is.
Every civilised country in the world that has a justice system relies on the "precedent" argument. IOW, the finest minds in the history of mankind has found value in ensuring that any judgement being made should be more or less in line with previous judgements. The wikipedia problem can be solved easily by recognising precedents and previous judgements.
Well, in a way that *is* dumping your dollars. What you're /getting/ is some other currency.
(2) developing tools for cheating in-game, ala aimbots that're easily adapted to new games,
Well, what did I as a PS3 gamer do to deserve this?
Well, you're funding those idiots, but that's your right, and I won't judge you for it. However, its the attackers rights to take their kit apart and share the info as they see fit, and the cheaters right to try to game the system. Sony is the one who should be protecting *you* in a technical manner, and not by simply trampling over non-customers rights.
This is precisely the reason why hackers are despised right now by most PS3 owners. I couldn't care less about them making emulators, games, knockoffs or even copies of games, installing linux, xbmc or using the console for other awesome stuff, but what I do care about is that my gaming experience is being affected by what they do. I am not Sony, nor am I fan of Sony. I choose the PS3 because I like to play games without hassle once in a while, and in my experience, Microsoft is by far the more evil company.
So, about retaliation: (1) Fight the DMCA. This is the real problem, isn't it? (2) Stop buying Sony products. (3) Stop whining. You (american hackers) knew full well that this was illegal in your country and didn't give a shit about getting caught.
This is how society and the market works - if enough gamers are pissed that gaming on a PS3 is a waste of time due to cheaters, then Sony makes less money. If Sony makes less money, then they may look into stopping the cheaters via methods other than simply bludgeoning non-cheaters with the full force of civil law.
While I certainly don't side with the poster you replied to, I would've been happier if it were double-blind. As it was, the *researchers* knew which phone was on and which wasn't. They should have simply randomly switched one phone on, and not standardised on the right.
Gimme a grant - I'll also like to do some "water-is-wet" studies!
(I suppose that its only these researchers who had no idea that people enjoy a thrill, no so much actual suffering. Sigh.)
Depends on the app - see this for an app that does what it needs to, without actually losing anything over what a native app would give.
(Too lazy to implement splitting just yet - but as you can see the rest of it works just fine, and is platform agnostic, portable, etc)
Thanks - will have a look (is this it - www.playframework.org?)
:-))
(At this point, I'm still wondering how I'm not modded troll - anyway, I've got the karma to burn
Programming since 1986. You?
Your application would run within an application framework, which runs on an Application Server, which runs on a JVM, which runs on an OS, which then gets deployed into a node in some cloud. All to solve some problem that's already been solved. Sometimes I look at the crap that is most java enterprise development, and wonder what the hell is preventing the load of manure from collapsing under its own weight - then I realise that that is why it takes a minimum of a dev-team of at least 6 people to do *anything* at all, within this app-framework, within the app-server, within the jvm ....
Is someone forcing you to use these frameworks?
Yes.
These various frameworks hold much value to those that have need of them (such as enterprises, for which it was intended), otherwise they wouldn't exist.
I find that to be an illogical argument - namely, that their very existence is a result of them adding much value. Just because something *exists* does not mean that it is "holds much value". Lots of things exist, that have very little value.
Just because you don't need them to for your particular app space doesn't mean they are "crap". It's easy to "dis" a technology that you don't understand. Generally, true appreciation (or educated criticism) of a given technology only comes with at least a rudimentary understanding of why things are the way they are.
My understanding of why the java enterprise space is the way it is, is (I hope) more than rudimentary. Why do you need an app framework? Why, so that your enterprise can readily and easily have new logic added to it? Why does your new logic get monstrous xml-files? To properly specify the behaviour of the new module, of course. But the xml file is too large and unwieldy to massage? Not a problem - lets create a framework and/or more modules that lets us edit *any* xml file. Why does your module *need* the app framework? Because the app framework supplies a basic architecture for pluggable modules (configured by xml, natch!) Wait, if thats the case, where's the reason for the application server? So that we can run multiple pluggable applications and/or frameworks that each get configured with a different xml file. Why do we need to run all of this? Because business logic is complex!!!!
See, here's my take - you see a problem, you write a general solution that is made specific by configuration parameters? No problem. You see a problem and write a module to solve that problem that gets used within a wider framework? No problem. You see a problem, and write a general solution to be used in a very specific framework, which results in a different problem, that gets a different solution, that results in a different problem, that gets a different solution ... etc ad nauseum.
(Yes, I've had to deal with this recently and am still sore that, of the entire codebase, a mere 1.2% LoC were devoted to actually solving the business problem - most of the code was spent inheriting, specifying interfaces, dumped in xml config files, or xml build files, doing weird reflection-fu at runtime for little to no actual gain in business logic, doing equally strange things with long chains of inherited classes (with each class only getting subclassed once, which sort of brings up the question of why separate the classes in the first place)).
The JAINSLEE is a good example of artificial complexity in action.
Uhm. Have you ever had a thought that 'solved' problems tend to be unsolved in reality?
Yes . Yes I have. However, when the "problems" being solved are problems caused by using the tech in the first place, then I've little sympathy. The enterprise "java app" is actually a plugin to a framework which runs on an application server. To get your code to compile/test/debug cycle you need all 3. Not really a problem, until you find out that each of them have their own rats nest of xml configs, in not-quite-readable form. But not a problem, because yet another 3 plugins exist to provides a web-frontend to each of those java stacks. Of course, you end up subclassing a class that has already been subclassed 8 times, with 4 different xml configs.
The "complexity" introduced is entirely artificial, and results in a recursive nightmare of "we need to write $Y to solve $X", when $X was a result of "we need to write $X to solve $Z". There is no more complexity in the majority of problems that java enterprise stacks gets used for than there was before, only now it takes an army of devs 3 years to develop the stack, then an entirely different army gets assigned to maintain it.
Don't get me wrong - I'm all for more abstraction, only the problem I see with all of these chained stacks is that they are abstracting *away* from the solution and towards a technology, and not abstracting towards the solution and away from the technology .
15 years ago most of Java enterprise stuff would have been written in crashy C++ with a lot of impenetrable CORBA mappings and weird UI frameworks. Or maybe if you are 'lucky' in impenetrable COBOL.
And actually, I can write software in Java (and now in Scala) single-handedly faster than several Python programmers. Because I know how to use all these tons of frameworks.
And I can solve most problems faster in Lisp than in Java, C++, python or most other things. What was your point?
Your application would run within an application framework, which runs on an Application Server, which runs on a JVM, which runs on an OS, which then gets deployed into a node in some cloud. All to solve some problem that's already been solved.
....
Sometimes I look at the crap that is most java enterprise development, and wonder what the hell is preventing the load of manure from collapsing under its own weight - then I realise that that is why it takes a minimum of a dev-team of at least 6 people to do *anything* at all, within this app-framework, within the app-server, within the jvm
Nope. Never. She did charity work (I made enough for both of us when we got married).
She volunteered at the SPCA and various soup kitchens for the homeless in those 11 odd years.
She never once turned bitchy to her friends or family. She frequently helped out (pro bono - she's a lawyer) in cases involving street children. She frequently baked goodies for me to take to work to share with colleagues.
In *all* of the years I've known her, she never *once* had anything bad to say about anyone. Fair enough, she had a quick temper, but I honestly cannot say she ever tried or threatened harm to any human (or other creature).
p> Of course, you can go ahead and say "you were just blind", but the fact is, I'm not the only one who thought she was genuinely nice - hell, when the separation first happened, my parents thought it was something *I* did, as they could not believe that she was capable of all those things (she also tried to put my dogs down while I was in jail - I managed to save two of them - the third had an unknown fate).
For the first few weeks, my parents watched me like a hawk, certain that I was cheating on my wife, or something similar ... they asked me if I was on drugs, if I beat her, etc ... sometimes I get the impression that they still can't believe that she is capable of actually putting my dog down while I was in jail.
All in all, she was a good person, and (until the last few weeks) a good wife as well. I think she may have quietly had a breakdown in the last few weeks (she miscarried 2 months before the separation), and all I did was argue about the symptoms I could see. I should have got her help.