Yeah, it seems more like a hacker message board where people chat and decide if they want to hack something. I know there was a split though -- over their reasons for hacking. One side wanted to hack because they thought it was funny (for the lulz), and the other wanted to hack for some political or moral reason (they called them "moralfags"). When they were having this argument was when Ryan Cleary launched a coup and took down their main servers. After that, two groups split off: LulzSec (for the lulz) and Project PM (moral guys). It seems now though that the lines are becoming less clear. Anonymous claimed to have a lot of values in the beginning, which they're beginning to break (like not hitting targets that would affect everyday people). The real irony in all this though is that Anonymous is helping secure the Web. Anyone remember the Deceptive Duo and the other patriot hackers? They were doing a lot of the same stuff Anonymous and LulzSec are doing, but they were trying to convince the companies to close their security holes. These new hacker groups are actually bringing attention to the terrible state of cybersecurity and are making companies and government close these holes, whether they mean to or not.
That's a good option - report its serial to Apple as stolen, then remote wipe the machine, or do something that will make him take it in to be repaired.
Just adding to this. I think the fundamental issue is whether people are actually creating a quality product. Yes, business is business, but when people stop giving weight to quality and just want to rip people off, things start sliding downhill.
What's happening with games is similar to what has happened to music. There are manufactured bands who don't write their own songs and have every part of their image created to get an intended response from people. There are also people who create music because they're talented and they enjoy music. Now, artists in both of these categories sell their music (usually).
The difference is the starting point. Anyone who knows good music knows the manufactured bands are hollow and are designed to play on your mind. It's a very soulless approach that ruins art.
Yes, games have always been partly about making money, but there are still people who put work into creating games they enjoy and they want people to enjoy. The other side of this creates games that people won't enjoy, but that keep people playing to make money. This has always existed, of course -- there have been plenty of barely playable games made after popular films, and there have been plenty of games meant to rob you of quarters in the arcades.
I think the value in this article is that it helps people recognize what's going on. If they still want to play games that do this, that's fine, of course, but it's good to let them know what's behind it.
True. The first thing I thought of when I read this was Verizon's recent announcement they'll be watching all user Web activity; learn what they like, whether they own pets, whether they like sports; and even track their locations.
Yeah, there are some great games that are similar to the old school dungeon crawls, but I'd put NetHack and Torchlight into a similar category as Diablo. There were similar games back then also -- I was a big fan of Castle of the Winds (1989). Even the Elder Scrolls series has the same first-person perspective.
But the gameplay of dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder (first and second), which I'm sure anyone who played them can reminisce about, was a lot different. There have been similar games since then, but none of them captured the genre as well as these. If the devs of Legend of Grimrock can really bring that back, then I think we all have something to look forward to.
Yeah, there's already stuff out there that can read emotions. They let users customize commands, so basically, if you have, say, 22 different emotions, thoughts, and expressions you can use, it will let you assign each one to a command of your choice. It basically turns each expression into a button, which you have to activate to give the command - it's not like it can tell what you're actually thinking.
This has already been done, and stuff like this has been out for a few years already. The Emotiv EPOC EEG headset has games on it that can be controlled with emotion and thought. FYI, Spirit Mountain: http://www.emotiv.com/store/apps/applications/117/602
It never caught on as well as the developers hoped though.
I used Dreamweaver for a good while. Really though, after you do Web design for a while it's best to just go straight to the code - plus you can't test PHP in Dreamweaver, which is a big problem if you're trying to work with Wordpress. Lately I've just been using Smultron (which is free). Coda is also a great app though - better than Smultron (it has great preview features), but it will run you about $100.
Yeah, the new Sam & Max games are good starting points - not too difficult, fun story. The older Lucasarts games may be a bit outdated for newcomers, although they're still the best out there.
This is interesting, but the premise of the story is old news. There were reports on this when the White House report came out came close to two weeks ago.
Some relevant quotes:
Countries “have an inherent right to self-defense that may be triggered by certain aggressive acts in cyberspace... When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country."
http://joshuaphilipp.com/2011/05/us-faces-a-long-road-in-implementing-new-cyberstrategies/
Also, the Chinese regime openly announced its cyberwarfare command back in July 2010, and it's cyberwarfare units have been known about as early as 2003. A relevant quote:
"The stated missions of the new cyber base appear to complement the PLA's information warfare (IW) units, which the PLA has been developing since at least 2003. The PLA's IW strategy was largely spearheaded by Major General Dai Qingmin, then-director of the PLA’s electronic warfare department (Fourth Department), who advocated a comprehensive information warfare effort (Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2009)."
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=36658&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=4b1746fecc
Adding to this though, it will be interesting to see how much the U.S. actually enforces its new cyberstratey, given that government networks and critical infrastructure are almost constantly hit with cyberattacks from state actors. Back in 2007, Netwarcom was already saying cyber conflicts with China was already at the level of "campaign-style, force-on-force engagement."
http://www.grc.com/sn/files/FCW_on_%20Cyber_Warefare.pdf
We should expect this from the Chinese regime. Reminds me of when Lang Lang played a song praising the killing of US troops at the White House when the Chinese leader was in town. If you read Chinese military doctrine also, it's loaded with plans on how they can try to fight the U.S. - one of the better known reports was "Unrestricted Warfare" written by two Chinese colonels.
The thing is that most of their strategy is based around unconventional warfare - using espionage to undercut foreign businesses like they were doing with Operation Night Dragon, using propaganda and soft power in what they call "the Three Warfares," and using cyberwarfare in what they refer to as "non-contact warfare." http://joshuaphilipp.com/2011/05/china-fights-a-war-without-firing-a-gun/
Hopefully this latest game will serve as a wake-up call.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, it seems more like a hacker message board where people chat and decide if they want to hack something. I know there was a split though -- over their reasons for hacking. One side wanted to hack because they thought it was funny (for the lulz), and the other wanted to hack for some political or moral reason (they called them "moralfags"). When they were having this argument was when Ryan Cleary launched a coup and took down their main servers. After that, two groups split off: LulzSec (for the lulz) and Project PM (moral guys). It seems now though that the lines are becoming less clear. Anonymous claimed to have a lot of values in the beginning, which they're beginning to break (like not hitting targets that would affect everyday people). The real irony in all this though is that Anonymous is helping secure the Web. Anyone remember the Deceptive Duo and the other patriot hackers? They were doing a lot of the same stuff Anonymous and LulzSec are doing, but they were trying to convince the companies to close their security holes. These new hacker groups are actually bringing attention to the terrible state of cybersecurity and are making companies and government close these holes, whether they mean to or not.
That's a good option - report its serial to Apple as stolen, then remote wipe the machine, or do something that will make him take it in to be repaired.
Just adding to this. I think the fundamental issue is whether people are actually creating a quality product. Yes, business is business, but when people stop giving weight to quality and just want to rip people off, things start sliding downhill.
What's happening with games is similar to what has happened to music. There are manufactured bands who don't write their own songs and have every part of their image created to get an intended response from people. There are also people who create music because they're talented and they enjoy music. Now, artists in both of these categories sell their music (usually). The difference is the starting point. Anyone who knows good music knows the manufactured bands are hollow and are designed to play on your mind. It's a very soulless approach that ruins art. Yes, games have always been partly about making money, but there are still people who put work into creating games they enjoy and they want people to enjoy. The other side of this creates games that people won't enjoy, but that keep people playing to make money. This has always existed, of course -- there have been plenty of barely playable games made after popular films, and there have been plenty of games meant to rob you of quarters in the arcades. I think the value in this article is that it helps people recognize what's going on. If they still want to play games that do this, that's fine, of course, but it's good to let them know what's behind it.
True. The first thing I thought of when I read this was Verizon's recent announcement they'll be watching all user Web activity; learn what they like, whether they own pets, whether they like sports; and even track their locations.
Yeah, there are some great games that are similar to the old school dungeon crawls, but I'd put NetHack and Torchlight into a similar category as Diablo. There were similar games back then also -- I was a big fan of Castle of the Winds (1989). Even the Elder Scrolls series has the same first-person perspective. But the gameplay of dungeon crawlers like Eye of the Beholder (first and second), which I'm sure anyone who played them can reminisce about, was a lot different. There have been similar games since then, but none of them captured the genre as well as these. If the devs of Legend of Grimrock can really bring that back, then I think we all have something to look forward to.
There's a project on Kickstarter about this right now, using Rovio robots and an EMOTIV headset. It's always interesting to see some form of new technology being worked on in a few places simultaneously - usually means something is about to hit big. http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/robots/robodance-5-telepresence-robotics-for-all-esp-the
Yeah, there's already stuff out there that can read emotions. They let users customize commands, so basically, if you have, say, 22 different emotions, thoughts, and expressions you can use, it will let you assign each one to a command of your choice. It basically turns each expression into a button, which you have to activate to give the command - it's not like it can tell what you're actually thinking.
This has already been done, and stuff like this has been out for a few years already. The Emotiv EPOC EEG headset has games on it that can be controlled with emotion and thought. FYI, Spirit Mountain: http://www.emotiv.com/store/apps/applications/117/602 It never caught on as well as the developers hoped though.
Yeah, they didn't used to. I spoke with someone on this a bit back - it ties, of course, into metrics and them trying to market themselves.
I used Dreamweaver for a good while. Really though, after you do Web design for a while it's best to just go straight to the code - plus you can't test PHP in Dreamweaver, which is a big problem if you're trying to work with Wordpress. Lately I've just been using Smultron (which is free). Coda is also a great app though - better than Smultron (it has great preview features), but it will run you about $100.
Yeah, the new Sam & Max games are good starting points - not too difficult, fun story. The older Lucasarts games may be a bit outdated for newcomers, although they're still the best out there.
This is interesting, but the premise of the story is old news. There were reports on this when the White House report came out came close to two weeks ago. Some relevant quotes: Countries “have an inherent right to self-defense that may be triggered by certain aggressive acts in cyberspace ... When warranted, the United States will respond to hostile acts in cyberspace as we would to any other threat to our country."
http://joshuaphilipp.com/2011/05/us-faces-a-long-road-in-implementing-new-cyberstrategies/
Also, the Chinese regime openly announced its cyberwarfare command back in July 2010, and it's cyberwarfare units have been known about as early as 2003. A relevant quote:
"The stated missions of the new cyber base appear to complement the PLA's information warfare (IW) units, which the PLA has been developing since at least 2003. The PLA's IW strategy was largely spearheaded by Major General Dai Qingmin, then-director of the PLA’s electronic warfare department (Fourth Department), who advocated a comprehensive information warfare effort (Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2009)."
http://www.jamestown.org/single/?no_cache=1&tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=36658&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=7&cHash=4b1746fecc
Adding to this though, it will be interesting to see how much the U.S. actually enforces its new cyberstratey, given that government networks and critical infrastructure are almost constantly hit with cyberattacks from state actors. Back in 2007, Netwarcom was already saying cyber conflicts with China was already at the level of "campaign-style, force-on-force engagement."
http://www.grc.com/sn/files/FCW_on_%20Cyber_Warefare.pdf
I think the issue is more in that this was developed by the Chinese military - not just another game developer.
We should expect this from the Chinese regime. Reminds me of when Lang Lang played a song praising the killing of US troops at the White House when the Chinese leader was in town. If you read Chinese military doctrine also, it's loaded with plans on how they can try to fight the U.S. - one of the better known reports was "Unrestricted Warfare" written by two Chinese colonels. The thing is that most of their strategy is based around unconventional warfare - using espionage to undercut foreign businesses like they were doing with Operation Night Dragon, using propaganda and soft power in what they call "the Three Warfares," and using cyberwarfare in what they refer to as "non-contact warfare." http://joshuaphilipp.com/2011/05/china-fights-a-war-without-firing-a-gun/ Hopefully this latest game will serve as a wake-up call.
Well said.