Sure, it's important to think about Tom Hall's future with Anox2 and whatnot, but I think it's a little more important to talk about what's going to happen to Anachronox 1's tech support.
Thanks to Ion Storm Dallas's final folding (and subsequent overdue removal of two employees who shall remain nameless here), tech support for Anox 1 is all but B4NX0R3D.
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What's funny is how hard I had to look to find that security white paper.
I hear that. I'm willing to bet MS's reputation, and IIS's with it, would be improved if they stopped this farcical notion of security and admitted, just like us Apache nuts, that tweaking is required for a secure(er) server.
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Personally, I'm having a helluva time just exploring this website/voicemail puzzle.
The movie could suck for all I care; this kind of stuff is fun.
Whether the movie is funded by the wrong companies, or uses incorrect sciences, or whatever, it's nice to see the Web being used in entertaining ways.
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Re:A list of phone numbers to call:
on
AI Movie Promo
·
· Score: 1
Something odd: Evan Chan's wife's machine wants a passcode to get a "seperate message". Any idea what it wants? It seems to want an eight-digit number, like a date of birth.
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What frightens me the most about the entire Columbine incident was that very few people thought to turn and look at where violence stems from (usually): the home. Nobody scruitinzied the parents, the imparters of moral fortitude, so to speak.
Ever since the Columbine shootings, the first event that always comes to mind was the great Judas Priest witch hunt of 1985 (see Dream Deceivers for more background information).
What were the results of the trial? The evidence was judged to be inconclusive, assisted in no small part by the obvious neglegance displayed by the parents of the two deceased children.
Although some magazines and TV stations reported on a possible child neglect case against the parents, practically no attention has been brought to this possible hypothesis.
I was picked on by a fair representation of the jock & glamor growd in High School. My brother is currently undergoing that kind of pressure. But because my parents raised me to respect and value life, the thought of killing someone never once entered my mind, even while I was getting pummeled by a gang of students for being different than them.
Does no one realize that the suprise and shock that everyone felt after that day might have been because no one saw it coming? Nobody even thought that this kind of tragedy could occur because, perhaps, had they been dealing with well-balanced, sane teenagers (if there is such a thing:), this never would have happened.
I feel sympathy for the parents, teachers and students of Columbine because they saw the unfortunate, and rare, effects of normal, everyday pressure on two kids who were (as much as I hate to simplify things) out of their minds to begin with. However, I feel no sympathy what so ever towards the parents of those two murderers, because they paid so little attention to their children that they never noticed the facination with weapons, explosives, or murder in general. No parent can call themselves responsible, and not sit their children down for a talk when they are even remotely suspicous of inner turmoil.
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But that's the thing. As pointed out previously, video games might help problem solving, hand-eye, etc. but they promote short attention spans by reinforcing instant gratification.
Roleplaying, on the other hand, encourages communication, teamplay, and imagination, while demanding a more robust attention span.
Scott Kurtz of PVP Online wrote a good long rant about this one.
Oh, and they also encourage devil worship. Right. I forgot.
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John Romero's main problem with Daikatana was that he started a project grand in scale, but then managed it poorly. In theory, Daikatana could've been completed just a little behind schedule (and maybe would've been a competetive product). But then firing your entire development team halfway through the project will set things back a bit.
That's the big kicker about Daikatana: it wasn't completed in an unreasonable amount of time; it was completed way behind schedule, to the point where the product was outdated the second it hit the shelves.
Also keep in mind: most of Daikatana's schedule was spent hyping the game. I'm sure Romero thought the game was going to be groundbreaking, and so he hyped it up a bunch to maximize potential sales. But we all know what that got him.
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What the hell is content? Nobody buys content. Real people pay money for music because it means something to them.
Not quite.
I have a roomate who owns in the order of 120+ CDs. No two of them are alike. The same goes for his movies. And all of his CDs and all of his movies vary wildly from crap to brilliance. And I'm speaking of crap on the most basic, universal-sense-of-the-word here (like Fantasy Mission Force starring, almost, Jackie Chan).
This poor fool listens to this music all day long, and yet can't manage to repeat a single lyric to me, or even tell me why he likes his music. The conclusion I reached? He doesn't like his music. He just wants noise in the background and has come to the conclusion that "diversity == good taste", and not "diversity (of his magnitude)== indecision".
Anyway. My point? Courtney Love likes to think that people listen to her (and others) music because that music means something to them. I have a different opinion. There's a higher percentage of people than she thinks that listen to music for a steady rhythm and background noise, not for emotional content.
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One of my problems with DVD movies (anime in particular) is analog-to-DVD mastering. When a studio has lost all their original prints, or only has final development film available, they loose a lot of quality when they transfer that film to DVD. It's like watching a film in a theater, which isn't the best image quality one could hope for.
One of the reasons why I liked the anime series "Lain" as much as I did was because it was mastered straight from studio digital to DVD, so the image was super crisp and beautifull.
Hopefully we'll be seeing more of this in animation and film.
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Something that has always bothered me about First Person Shooter "A" vs. First Person Shooter "B" battles has been Doom nostalgia. I remember quite clearly playing Doom for the first time (back when my 387 was cool) and loving Doom for all it was worth.
But I can also honestly say that Doom doesn't hold a candle to games available in today's market. Half-Life, Quake3 and Unreal Tournament pretty much walk all over it in terms of gameplay (it would be unfair to compare graphics).
Considering, in addition, that id Software's last single player game (Quake 2) had such a poorly developed game, I don't have much expectations for a new Doom game, unless they invite someone in to design the game's single player content.
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A recent rumor on gaming-related pages is that John Carmack is working on a gaming-specific Operating System. Although he's denied this rumor, it's an interesting thought nevertheless.
Linux offers a unique opportunity to reprogram (for the power user) and optimize for multimedia and gaming performance. Should someone undertake the considerable task of programming a "gaming version" of Linux, we could see an increase in industry attention.
However, I think most people will agree that Linux's main detractor from public consumption is its lack of idiot-proof installation. Although it certainly isn't shy on tech support.
Games like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament have demonstrated that Linux can be used for gaming. However, because most gamers are quick-fix "short attention span" computer users, they don't have the time nor the inclination to learn Linux to the degree that they should. (Please note, I fit myself into that category, it's not intended as flame bait).
I also, perhaps naively, consider it a promising sign that gaming platforms (such as Playstation1 and 2) are using Linux-esque Kernels and OSs for their development work.
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Instead of 2600 I should start reading Guns & Ammo?
I'm getting mixed signals here. What's Neil Stephenson saying? Should I start worrying more about civilian-owned kevlar and shotguns than PGP encryption?
Also, this doesn't come as such a suprise to me. While reading Cryptonomicon, I was suprised to see the positive light that rifle-and-shotgun-carrying crypto freaks were shown in. It wouldn't suprise me much if Mr. Stephenson advocated loose gun control laws for "home security".
Of course, he might've also just been talking about bullet-proof windows, and I could be getting all worked up over nothing:)
Consider also, this quote from Stephenson in the article:
"That's my job here - to come up and challenge the assumptions. It's not 'Let's all get plastered and agree with each other.'"
It could be that he was just posing an alternative view. Maybe even one to which he hasn't given much thought.
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I would reason that most of the people who voted "yes" on that poll were more concerned about gameplay than their own privacy.
My younger brother, who plays EQ and Asheron's Call and others, frequently belts out long rants about how irritating these "mini-hacks" are to him. He considers them cheating.
What I'm getting at is, most people who object to ShowEQ (and the rest of the suite) and agreed to HD scanning feel so strongly about online cheating that they'll give up their HD's privacy for an equal chance at EverQuest.
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That's an interesting point. One could say that the word "Censorship" is used here because it is a refusal to continue to do business with an existing customer.
However, if a business refused to do business with a customer at all, a misuse of anti-censorship legislation would be to sue that business.
As is well documented here on Slashdot, America is becoming a society based on victims. Should any legal ramifications of this reach the American legal system, we could be facing a gross misuse of an honest and well-intentioned guideline.
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"This is precisely why politicians prefer unarmed peasants. Trouble is, everything is a weapon today."
Maybe so, but remember, unarmed peasants aren't really unarmed. Kung Fu was developed for the defense of unarmed monks and farmers, you know. I suspect what politicians prefer now is unarmed, uneducated, brainwashed peasants who are too busy killing each other and entertaining themselves to pop up and take notice of what's going on around them.
There's a paralell here, between unarmed monks in ancient China and modern day hackers but I'm an expert on neither, so I won't try to make one.
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Sure, using the code is illegal. More than likely, indicating how to create the code, or writing technical specifications on the CSS encryption standard is illegal as well (IANAL, so I don't know for sure).
However, is deep linking to the DeCSS program illegal? I don't see how it could be, but of course, the MPAA is probably going to sue everybody and their dog if they think it'll help keep DeCSS down.
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If I sucked so much at parenting that I needed a 1-800 number and a private organization to tell me that my child was depressed, I don't think I'd be predisposed to do anything about it.
A parent who's unaware of a mood so extreme that their kid's peers have to do something about it is probably both part of the problem and not the solution.
Now, for those children who don't have a caring parent to spot when they're depressed, this kind of service might be appropriate. But there's a few good reasons why it won't work, and those are already being discussed in other threads.
This AC's commment has irritated me so much, I'm going to stop typing before I say something really inflamatory.
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Slashdot Mirror
Thanks to Ion Storm Dallas's final folding (and subsequent overdue removal of two employees who shall remain nameless here), tech support for Anox 1 is all but B4NX0R3D.
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I hear that. I'm willing to bet MS's reputation, and IIS's with it, would be improved if they stopped this farcical notion of security and admitted, just like us Apache nuts, that tweaking is required for a secure(er) server.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
The movie could suck for all I care; this kind of stuff is fun.
Whether the movie is funded by the wrong companies, or uses incorrect sciences, or whatever, it's nice to see the Web being used in entertaining ways.
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***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
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The website's unfortunatly all Flash 5, so you can find a summary (and the beta binaries) here if you're flash-intolerant.
But if you want my opinion, everything pales in comparison to Litestep :)
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Ever since the Columbine shootings, the first event that always comes to mind was the great Judas Priest witch hunt of 1985 (see Dream Deceivers for more background information).
What were the results of the trial? The evidence was judged to be inconclusive, assisted in no small part by the obvious neglegance displayed by the parents of the two deceased children.
Although some magazines and TV stations reported on a possible child neglect case against the parents, practically no attention has been brought to this possible hypothesis.
I was picked on by a fair representation of the jock & glamor growd in High School. My brother is currently undergoing that kind of pressure. But because my parents raised me to respect and value life, the thought of killing someone never once entered my mind, even while I was getting pummeled by a gang of students for being different than them.
Does no one realize that the suprise and shock that everyone felt after that day might have been because no one saw it coming? Nobody even thought that this kind of tragedy could occur because, perhaps, had they been dealing with well-balanced, sane teenagers (if there is such a thing :), this never would have happened.
I feel sympathy for the parents, teachers and students of Columbine because they saw the unfortunate, and rare, effects of normal, everyday pressure on two kids who were (as much as I hate to simplify things) out of their minds to begin with. However, I feel no sympathy what so ever towards the parents of those two murderers, because they paid so little attention to their children that they never noticed the facination with weapons, explosives, or murder in general. No parent can call themselves responsible, and not sit their children down for a talk when they are even remotely suspicous of inner turmoil.
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"Never deal with a Dragon". 'Nuff said.
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Roleplaying, on the other hand, encourages communication, teamplay, and imagination, while demanding a more robust attention span.
Scott Kurtz of PVP Online wrote a good long rant about this one.
Oh, and they also encourage devil worship. Right. I forgot.
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That's the big kicker about Daikatana: it wasn't completed in an unreasonable amount of time; it was completed way behind schedule, to the point where the product was outdated the second it hit the shelves.
Also keep in mind: most of Daikatana's schedule was spent hyping the game. I'm sure Romero thought the game was going to be groundbreaking, and so he hyped it up a bunch to maximize potential sales. But we all know what that got him.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
What the hell is content? Nobody buys content. Real people pay money for music because it means something to them.
Not quite.
I have a roomate who owns in the order of 120+ CDs. No two of them are alike. The same goes for his movies. And all of his CDs and all of his movies vary wildly from crap to brilliance. And I'm speaking of crap on the most basic, universal-sense-of-the-word here (like Fantasy Mission Force starring, almost, Jackie Chan).
This poor fool listens to this music all day long, and yet can't manage to repeat a single lyric to me, or even tell me why he likes his music. The conclusion I reached? He doesn't like his music. He just wants noise in the background and has come to the conclusion that "diversity == good taste", and not "diversity (of his magnitude)== indecision".
Anyway. My point? Courtney Love likes to think that people listen to her (and others) music because that music means something to them. I have a different opinion. There's a higher percentage of people than she thinks that listen to music for a steady rhythm and background noise, not for emotional content.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
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One of the reasons why I liked the anime series "Lain" as much as I did was because it was mastered straight from studio digital to DVD, so the image was super crisp and beautifull.
Hopefully we'll be seeing more of this in animation and film.
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But I can also honestly say that Doom doesn't hold a candle to games available in today's market. Half-Life, Quake3 and Unreal Tournament pretty much walk all over it in terms of gameplay (it would be unfair to compare graphics).
Considering, in addition, that id Software's last single player game (Quake 2) had such a poorly developed game, I don't have much expectations for a new Doom game, unless they invite someone in to design the game's single player content.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
Linux offers a unique opportunity to reprogram (for the power user) and optimize for multimedia and gaming performance. Should someone undertake the considerable task of programming a "gaming version" of Linux, we could see an increase in industry attention.
However, I think most people will agree that Linux's main detractor from public consumption is its lack of idiot-proof installation. Although it certainly isn't shy on tech support.
Games like Quake3 and Unreal Tournament have demonstrated that Linux can be used for gaming. However, because most gamers are quick-fix "short attention span" computer users, they don't have the time nor the inclination to learn Linux to the degree that they should. (Please note, I fit myself into that category, it's not intended as flame bait).
I also, perhaps naively, consider it a promising sign that gaming platforms (such as Playstation1 and 2) are using Linux-esque Kernels and OSs for their development work.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
I'm getting mixed signals here. What's Neil Stephenson saying? Should I start worrying more about civilian-owned kevlar and shotguns than PGP encryption?
Also, this doesn't come as such a suprise to me. While reading Cryptonomicon, I was suprised to see the positive light that rifle-and-shotgun-carrying crypto freaks were shown in. It wouldn't suprise me much if Mr. Stephenson advocated loose gun control laws for "home security".
Of course, he might've also just been talking about bullet-proof windows, and I could be getting all worked up over nothing :)
Consider also, this quote from Stephenson in the article:
"That's my job here - to come up and challenge the assumptions. It's not 'Let's all get plastered and agree with each other.'"
It could be that he was just posing an alternative view. Maybe even one to which he hasn't given much thought.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
My younger brother, who plays EQ and Asheron's Call and others, frequently belts out long rants about how irritating these "mini-hacks" are to him. He considers them cheating.
What I'm getting at is, most people who object to ShowEQ (and the rest of the suite) and agreed to HD scanning feel so strongly about online cheating that they'll give up their HD's privacy for an equal chance at EverQuest.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
However, if a business refused to do business with a customer at all, a misuse of anti-censorship legislation would be to sue that business.
As is well documented here on Slashdot, America is becoming a society based on victims. Should any legal ramifications of this reach the American legal system, we could be facing a gross misuse of an honest and well-intentioned guideline.
***JUMP PAD ACTIVATION INITIATION START***
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Maybe so, but remember, unarmed peasants aren't really unarmed. Kung Fu was developed for the defense of unarmed monks and farmers, you know. I suspect what politicians prefer now is unarmed, uneducated, brainwashed peasants who are too busy killing each other and entertaining themselves to pop up and take notice of what's going on around them.
There's a paralell here, between unarmed monks in ancient China and modern day hackers but I'm an expert on neither, so I won't try to make one.
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However, is deep linking to the DeCSS program illegal? I don't see how it could be, but of course, the MPAA is probably going to sue everybody and their dog if they think it'll help keep DeCSS down.
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***TRANSPORT WHEN READY***
If I sucked so much at parenting that I needed a 1-800 number and a private organization to tell me that my child was depressed, I don't think I'd be predisposed to do anything about it.
A parent who's unaware of a mood so extreme that their kid's peers have to do something about it is probably both part of the problem and not the solution.
Now, for those children who don't have a caring parent to spot when they're depressed, this kind of service might be appropriate. But there's a few good reasons why it won't work, and those are already being discussed in other threads.
This AC's commment has irritated me so much, I'm going to stop typing before I say something really inflamatory.
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"Hah! Taste my Third Heaven's Gate Parsing Strike!"
"Useless against Golden Willow Parts the Nested Documents!"
And lots of programmers wearing jeans and t-shirts flying around on cables through bamboo forests.
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