I hear what you're saying, but for every rush limbaugh there is a michael moore, and for each of them, there are 2 or 3 moderate voters. You could get around voter participation (say, someone sets their preferences and never pays attention again) a bit by requiring regular re-registration. At least you'd know their choices were concious. I agree that most people would probably still give their vote to one representative, in affect emulating the current system, but that wouldn't break the new system either.
The big key point you are missing is the instant feedback mechanism this would allow. Sure, someone could get on TV and campaign to be "your voter", but as soon as they do *anything* that pisses you off, plink, they are gone, end of story. That seems like a hell of an improvement over:
Dude gets elected. Dude does some ok stuff and some really crappy stuff. Next election cycle, decide if Dude A is better or worse than you think Dude B will be. Repeat.
Chances of getting stuck with a rep that doesn't represent you seems a bit higher than way, doesn't it?
At least thousands of people would have to be bought instead of just one politician, eh? More expensive for the buyers and more people benefit, even if you want to be absolutely cynical and pessimistic it's an improvement in that respect. This would make vote buying harder, now wouldn't it. Considering it's been happening, above the board, for decades now I don't see the objection here either. Oh wait. Those bribes in the millions of dollars never swayed any votes, they were just "campaign donations" that were of course ignored for the integrity of the party/candidate they were given to. Of course.
Personally I'd much rather see the check myself, thank you. At least then I'd know my vote was bought and paid for instead of wondering all the time.
Re:Decentralized Democracy
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I don't see how it's any different than it is now, except for the fact that you could change them instantly if you didn't like how they were voting, and those of us who DO want to be active in a direct manner could do so.
As it stands now, we have the popularity contest between, usually, two individuals most people don't want anyway and they pick the one they hate least. Then we're stuck with them until the next term, when we get to choose between tweedledee from the last election and the new smiling tweedledum. Or vote third party, which I do, but which in our current binary-type, simple-majority system really is tantamount to throwing your vote away simply as a protest and a hope.
I'd be willing for idiots to earmark other idiots as their reps if I could earmark who I wanted. Idiots are already earmarking idiots as their reps now and I have very little voice towards changing it in the current system, as once they win nothing I say matters anymore.
In short, it really couldn't be much worse than it already is as far as vacuous voting and reps go.
Decentralized Democracy
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Obviously there are a boatload of issues with security that, hopefully, could be addressed someday. However I have a dream.
That dream is for the day where I, as a voter, get to make my voice heard directly on as much or as little of the government's operation as possible, without one catch-all representative doing it for me. Issues come up for voting, and there would be a place where I could go and see the most popular arguements on both sides and the views of critics and pundits and politicos of my choosing regarding the issues in question if I like, and vote directly on the issues. Or, if I am busy, perhaps I could earmark my representatives by expertise. Perhaps I want to earmark a respected doctor as my representative for medical issues, greenspan as my economic representative, nader as my consumer rights representative... and have their votes count for mine as default unless I actively change my rep for a particular issue or earmark an issue as "manual".
We'd still need a president to handle emergency decisions, diplomacy, and sometimes to override popular views that just are plain bad. But congress and the house of reps could go away completely. The "house of reps" would simply be whoever the people respect enough, either overall or within their area of expertise, at any particular time, to trust with their own vote. No terms or limits or re elections or smear campaigns. Just issues and discussion and participation, directly, on a one person one vote basis.
Interesting you chose two folkloric remedies that actually have been verified by modern science as having therepeutic value in your example. Leeching and imbibing alchohol are both viable treatments for a variety of ailments.
Their reasoning was wrong as to why, but they recognized that something worked. Likewise we may not fully understand how these issues will affect us in the future, but we know they will and we have some idea how we might react were it to happen today.
That's more than enough to start a conversation, IMHO.
Denying reality, most likely because they don't feel their faith can stand the test of seeing things as they are. They will be judgemental (judge not), react violently (shalt not), inspired to one of the seven deadly sins, what have you.
The only way their "faith" can bolster them is to attempt to live in a bubble world where bad things may happen, just not anywhere near them.
This is not a comment on all Christians or religious people. Just the ignorant ones who refuse to deal with reality using the tenets their religion provides for them; compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, and love.
Unfortunately there are a lot of them.
There can definitely be a niche for Christian games. End results can be in line with their teachings, recreate biblical situations, explore "heaven" and "hell", whatever, there is certainly plenty to build upon and explore in Biblical literature and teachings. A RTS of the Exodus for example might be interesting. But that's a far cry from providing one more method of insulating oneself from reality and bolstering a false faith that stands only because you refuse to allow it to be challenged.
Epic actually has hired from within their modding community, Joe Wilcox coded "Client-Side Hack protection" or CSHP for Unreal Tournament and now works for Epic themselves. They've also comissioned a team to build Unreal TV 2003 for rebroadcasting of matches (hiring the team that made it for free for Unreal Tournament) and hired another programmer from the community at least on a part time basis to work on their server webadmin interfaces and features.
So they already did that. Now they are doing more;)
Sure you can, you can release a professional caliber engine editing suite specifically made to make modding and mapping as easy as possible, and make it free with every copy of the game you ship that allows the owners to modify pretty much every aspect of the engine as they see fit, as long as they aren't selling it. Like they did with UT and now with UT2003.
That is a LOT more useful and interesting than releasing source code for a ten year old game that is hopelessly obsolete, wouldn't you say?
Yet nothing for the gross and fine motor skills involved in hefting a gun and steady aim.
I dunno, I think the results will be less than impressive as far as player performance goes. Strategy and tactics are the tools of people who are competant in the basic skills of the contest they engage in, not a replacement for them. Especially paintball which isn't quite accurate to begin with.
Wait wait! SPAM!!! what was I thinking, they'll be awesome at it:D
What are the chances that a bunch of CS players who are used to spinning 180's over a few centimeters of hand movement are going to be very good at the physical aspects of real-life paintball, like running and most importantly aim/handling of paintball guns?
This would probably be a blast, but not terribly competitive. Sure, you might get to the checkpoint first, but you still have to HIT the opponent with your paintballs, and I doubt a ton of computer jockeys are very good at that.
I'll definitely be watching to see how it goes though, very interesting idea.
hardly. You have a choice of genres sure, but choice in viewpoints?
One company running 1000 channels is not a choice of 1000 viewpoints, it's one viewpoint with 1000 faces.
Just for an indication of how insidious the problem is, how many stories on this have you seen in the major media outlets? Gosh, this must not be very newsworthy. Or perhaps the few companies that run the major media outlets don't think you need to hear about it very much. Odd, huh?
So what happens when all your client does is processing streaming video, not recognizing any objects, because we all have fat pipes and blazing computers?
Packet sniffing recognition software.
Games will never be "fixed" because there is ALWAYS a way to cheat, and cheat coding as a way of getting people to "fix" their games is like choking someone to get them to breathe.
The visible client information will never happen perfectly. If the server didn't tell you that someone was behind that corner until they walk out from behind it PLUS your ping time to the server, anyone with a jumpy connection would see them just appear out of thin air. Players would be in uproar about that. They have to at least relay it a little early to keep gameplay smooth, which would still allow wallhacks to have some benefit.
And global banning is a nice idea, but whatever method you use will get false positives. How likely do you think it is that these companies would want to alienate honest customers by banning them in error because they have good aim? That alone restricts any such banning system in its usefulness.
Accuracy checkers are also a waste of time. Bots are often programmed to aim like players.
All these things would help, but not stop cheating, the big question though is, are the cures worse than the disease in the eyes of the customers?
is that the UTV client will be done in a couple of weeks allowing virtually unlimited spectation of matches with only one "cameraman" in the server.
also Epic has said the next patch will break network compatibility with older servers/clients, but will also reduce client bandwidth requirements by 40% and server CPU utilization by as much as 50%... pretty crazy if true. Interesting they would break network compatability given that they are releasing the next iteration (UT2004) this fall, but if we get those kinds of benefits it would be well worth it. Good servers are in short supply unfortunately, in part because of their high requirements.
The Epic boys have been quite busy. I have to say I was extremely dissapointed with the buggy nature of UT2003 at release, but they have truly gone above and beyond the call of duty with these mega beefy patches and free content and extras like software rendering for example. Hopefully the 2004 release (backwards compatible with 2003 servers) will reinvigorate the online community for this franchise...
Gee pardon me for thinking it's a big deal that should have gotten at least a sentance or two of mention in one of the 4-5 stories they've done on E3 so far.
Well, consider this, if this service really took off, and apple follows through with getting the independants in there; what advantage would there be to going with one label over another? How long before you don't need a label of any kind? I know bands that produce their own music now, using software, that is completely professional in its mixing and sound quality. If they can get it up directly on a service like this, the only advantage a label can offer them is in physical shipment of goods or in advertising, which they won't get unless the label thinks they are going to be huge, right?
This could be the foot in the door for indie bands all over the world. Release online first to a large and willing market who can try you out for $1 a pop instead of $10 for a CD they've never heard, and when you've got some revenue and hype behind you THEN you can negotiate your deal with the labels to hit the physical product market. And/or go indie. Heck if you got "the buzz" smaller labels could bid aggressively to handle your music for the notoriety you might bring THEM... who knows?
Labels win now because it's practically the only way artists have had to get "ahead" (in quotes for obvious reasons), and get their music heard. This could very well change that over the next several years.
1. Every hit I've seen has some kind of effect, ranging from covering your target in electricty to blood sprays, sparks, or the "green glow" when you cover them with link gun secondary
2. Laggy? 90% of the demo servers are some yahoo hosting a 20 person non dedicated game on his home cable connection. Find a good server (search by ping, lower is better for those who dont' know) and look for player max counts of 14 or less if you want to be pretty sure the game is going to be smooth. Also, avoid anything called "Another UT2003 server", as whoever is running it is so clueless they couldn't even change the default name of the server, and it will most likely suck.
3. Very different then UT, but still also the same.. just like a good sequel should be. The new movement tricks and faster weapon speed alone drastically change combat, the weapons are weaker on the whole (until you get good with them, instead of just being able to kill kill kill with no ability), game moves faster, and adrenaline replaces most of the powerups. Just like UT?
Also, just a personal note, Bombing Run is a wildly good, fast paced, sports like game. You owe it to yourself to give it a shot. Even if every other game mode were utter crap, it would be worth checking out simply for that one gametype. Picture rugby with guns and you've got the basic idea.
the older text based MUDs often had a "wish system" where you would send in money for "wishes" that you could use to up stats, or get items, or what have you.
It was an accepted practice then, and it should be now. For christ sakes this is a business, not some utopian ideal we should all be striving for.
Interesting to see them offer a service that cuts down on the return they get from "leveling addiction" though.
As far as I can tell from the comments I've seen from Mark Rein, it looks like they are trying really hard to make it one box product that both windows and linux users can buy. He was dissapointed because this news is too late to get "Linux compatible" prominently featured on the box illustration I believe.
Much like Warcraft 3 in which you can install on windows or a mac client off of the same CD. Very convenient.
would you rather get anywhere from 10-80 hours a month of entertainment for $13 or go see one movie and get a soda, maybe a small popcorn?
That's value my friend, in the entertainment market. Personally I would have no bones whatsoever paying a monthly subscription fee for any online multiplayer game, provided that enabled the producers to support their product online adequately (good servers, admins, updates).
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I hear what you're saying, but for every rush limbaugh there is a michael moore, and for each of them, there are 2 or 3 moderate voters. You could get around voter participation (say, someone sets their preferences and never pays attention again) a bit by requiring regular re-registration. At least you'd know their choices were concious. I agree that most people would probably still give their vote to one representative, in affect emulating the current system, but that wouldn't break the new system either.
The big key point you are missing is the instant feedback mechanism this would allow. Sure, someone could get on TV and campaign to be "your voter", but as soon as they do *anything* that pisses you off, plink, they are gone, end of story. That seems like a hell of an improvement over:
Dude gets elected.
Dude does some ok stuff and some really crappy stuff.
Next election cycle, decide if Dude A is better or worse than you think Dude B will be.
Repeat.
Chances of getting stuck with a rep that doesn't represent you seems a bit higher than way, doesn't it?
At least thousands of people would have to be bought instead of just one politician, eh? More expensive for the buyers and more people benefit, even if you want to be absolutely cynical and pessimistic it's an improvement in that respect. This would make vote buying harder, now wouldn't it. Considering it's been happening, above the board, for decades now I don't see the objection here either. Oh wait. Those bribes in the millions of dollars never swayed any votes, they were just "campaign donations" that were of course ignored for the integrity of the party/candidate they were given to. Of course.
Personally I'd much rather see the check myself, thank you. At least then I'd know my vote was bought and paid for instead of wondering all the time.
I don't see how it's any different than it is now, except for the fact that you could change them instantly if you didn't like how they were voting, and those of us who DO want to be active in a direct manner could do so.
As it stands now, we have the popularity contest between, usually, two individuals most people don't want anyway and they pick the one they hate least. Then we're stuck with them until the next term, when we get to choose between tweedledee from the last election and the new smiling tweedledum. Or vote third party, which I do, but which in our current binary-type, simple-majority system really is tantamount to throwing your vote away simply as a protest and a hope.
I'd be willing for idiots to earmark other idiots as their reps if I could earmark who I wanted. Idiots are already earmarking idiots as their reps now and I have very little voice towards changing it in the current system, as once they win nothing I say matters anymore.
In short, it really couldn't be much worse than it already is as far as vacuous voting and reps go.
Obviously there are a boatload of issues with security that, hopefully, could be addressed someday. However I have a dream.
That dream is for the day where I, as a voter, get to make my voice heard directly on as much or as little of the government's operation as possible, without one catch-all representative doing it for me. Issues come up for voting, and there would be a place where I could go and see the most popular arguements on both sides and the views of critics and pundits and politicos of my choosing regarding the issues in question if I like, and vote directly on the issues. Or, if I am busy, perhaps I could earmark my representatives by expertise. Perhaps I want to earmark a respected doctor as my representative for medical issues, greenspan as my economic representative, nader as my consumer rights representative... and have their votes count for mine as default unless I actively change my rep for a particular issue or earmark an issue as "manual".
We'd still need a president to handle emergency decisions, diplomacy, and sometimes to override popular views that just are plain bad. But congress and the house of reps could go away completely. The "house of reps" would simply be whoever the people respect enough, either overall or within their area of expertise, at any particular time, to trust with their own vote. No terms or limits or re elections or smear campaigns. Just issues and discussion and participation, directly, on a one person one vote basis.
Maybe someday..
Interesting you chose two folkloric remedies that actually have been verified by modern science as having therepeutic value in your example. Leeching and imbibing alchohol are both viable treatments for a variety of ailments.
Their reasoning was wrong as to why, but they recognized that something worked. Likewise we may not fully understand how these issues will affect us in the future, but we know they will and we have some idea how we might react were it to happen today.
That's more than enough to start a conversation, IMHO.
he wanted to build membership up to charge membership fees?
Gamesnet isn't even the best IRC service out there, and he thought he'd be able to charge with a slew of absolutely free competitors out there?
If they get a judge or jury with a clue, they should laugh him out of court.
Denying reality, most likely because they don't feel their faith can stand the test of seeing things as they are. They will be judgemental (judge not), react violently (shalt not), inspired to one of the seven deadly sins, what have you.
The only way their "faith" can bolster them is to attempt to live in a bubble world where bad things may happen, just not anywhere near them.
This is not a comment on all Christians or religious people. Just the ignorant ones who refuse to deal with reality using the tenets their religion provides for them; compassion, tolerance, forgiveness, and love.
Unfortunately there are a lot of them.
There can definitely be a niche for Christian games. End results can be in line with their teachings, recreate biblical situations, explore "heaven" and "hell", whatever, there is certainly plenty to build upon and explore in Biblical literature and teachings. A RTS of the Exodus for example might be interesting. But that's a far cry from providing one more method of insulating oneself from reality and bolstering a false faith that stands only because you refuse to allow it to be challenged.
UT2003 already has TTM (Teamplay Tourney Mod) that follows the same idea of tweaking the game for hardcore competitive needs.
http://www.planetunreal.com/ttm
In fact it should be a serious contender for at least a couple of categories in this contest IMO.
Epic actually has hired from within their modding community, Joe Wilcox coded "Client-Side Hack protection" or CSHP for Unreal Tournament and now works for Epic themselves. They've also comissioned a team to build Unreal TV 2003 for rebroadcasting of matches (hiring the team that made it for free for Unreal Tournament) and hired another programmer from the community at least on a part time basis to work on their server webadmin interfaces and features.
;)
So they already did that. Now they are doing more
Sure you can, you can release a professional caliber engine editing suite specifically made to make modding and mapping as easy as possible, and make it free with every copy of the game you ship that allows the owners to modify pretty much every aspect of the engine as they see fit, as long as they aren't selling it. Like they did with UT and now with UT2003.
That is a LOT more useful and interesting than releasing source code for a ten year old game that is hopelessly obsolete, wouldn't you say?
Yet nothing for the gross and fine motor skills involved in hefting a gun and steady aim.
:D
I dunno, I think the results will be less than impressive as far as player performance goes. Strategy and tactics are the tools of people who are competant in the basic skills of the contest they engage in, not a replacement for them. Especially paintball which isn't quite accurate to begin with.
Wait wait! SPAM!!! what was I thinking, they'll be awesome at it
What are the chances that a bunch of CS players who are used to spinning 180's over a few centimeters of hand movement are going to be very good at the physical aspects of real-life paintball, like running and most importantly aim/handling of paintball guns?
This would probably be a blast, but not terribly competitive. Sure, you might get to the checkpoint first, but you still have to HIT the opponent with your paintballs, and I doubt a ton of computer jockeys are very good at that.
I'll definitely be watching to see how it goes though, very interesting idea.
hardly. You have a choice of genres sure, but choice in viewpoints?
One company running 1000 channels is not a choice of 1000 viewpoints, it's one viewpoint with 1000 faces.
Just for an indication of how insidious the problem is, how many stories on this have you seen in the major media outlets? Gosh, this must not be very newsworthy. Or perhaps the few companies that run the major media outlets don't think you need to hear about it very much. Odd, huh?
So what happens when all your client does is processing streaming video, not recognizing any objects, because we all have fat pipes and blazing computers?
Packet sniffing recognition software.
Games will never be "fixed" because there is ALWAYS a way to cheat, and cheat coding as a way of getting people to "fix" their games is like choking someone to get them to breathe.
The visible client information will never happen perfectly. If the server didn't tell you that someone was behind that corner until they walk out from behind it PLUS your ping time to the server, anyone with a jumpy connection would see them just appear out of thin air. Players would be in uproar about that. They have to at least relay it a little early to keep gameplay smooth, which would still allow wallhacks to have some benefit.
And global banning is a nice idea, but whatever method you use will get false positives. How likely do you think it is that these companies would want to alienate honest customers by banning them in error because they have good aim? That alone restricts any such banning system in its usefulness.
Accuracy checkers are also a waste of time. Bots are often programmed to aim like players.
All these things would help, but not stop cheating, the big question though is, are the cures worse than the disease in the eyes of the customers?
is that the UTV client will be done in a couple of weeks allowing virtually unlimited spectation of matches with only one "cameraman" in the server.
also Epic has said the next patch will break network compatibility with older servers/clients, but will also reduce client bandwidth requirements by 40% and server CPU utilization by as much as 50%... pretty crazy if true. Interesting they would break network compatability given that they are releasing the next iteration (UT2004) this fall, but if we get those kinds of benefits it would be well worth it. Good servers are in short supply unfortunately, in part because of their high requirements.
The Epic boys have been quite busy. I have to say I was extremely dissapointed with the buggy nature of UT2003 at release, but they have truly gone above and beyond the call of duty with these mega beefy patches and free content and extras like software rendering for example. Hopefully the 2004 release (backwards compatible with 2003 servers) will reinvigorate the online community for this franchise...
Gee pardon me for thinking it's a big deal that should have gotten at least a sentance or two of mention in one of the 4-5 stories they've done on E3 so far.
Not a single mention of the upcoming Unreal Tournament 2004? Too busy staring at booth babes perhaps?
Well, consider this, if this service really took off, and apple follows through with getting the independants in there; what advantage would there be to going with one label over another? How long before you don't need a label of any kind? I know bands that produce their own music now, using software, that is completely professional in its mixing and sound quality. If they can get it up directly on a service like this, the only advantage a label can offer them is in physical shipment of goods or in advertising, which they won't get unless the label thinks they are going to be huge, right?
This could be the foot in the door for indie bands all over the world. Release online first to a large and willing market who can try you out for $1 a pop instead of $10 for a CD they've never heard, and when you've got some revenue and hype behind you THEN you can negotiate your deal with the labels to hit the physical product market. And/or go indie. Heck if you got "the buzz" smaller labels could bid aggressively to handle your music for the notoriety you might bring THEM... who knows?
Labels win now because it's practically the only way artists have had to get "ahead" (in quotes for obvious reasons), and get their music heard. This could very well change that over the next several years.
That appeared to be sarcasm, but it gets modded to "insightful"
who's the joke really on?
What if you take into account the possible venues a reporter has to have stories with real substance aired?
That's partially tongue in cheek but our ratings-driven media system turns out the very best in filler, hype and fluff in the free world!
Perhaps they should do a study on quality of reporting available rather than free speech.
1. Every hit I've seen has some kind of effect, ranging from covering your target in electricty to blood sprays, sparks, or the "green glow" when you cover them with link gun secondary
2. Laggy? 90% of the demo servers are some yahoo hosting a 20 person non dedicated game on his home cable connection. Find a good server (search by ping, lower is better for those who dont' know) and look for player max counts of 14 or less if you want to be pretty sure the game is going to be smooth. Also, avoid anything called "Another UT2003 server", as whoever is running it is so clueless they couldn't even change the default name of the server, and it will most likely suck.
3. Very different then UT, but still also the same.. just like a good sequel should be. The new movement tricks and faster weapon speed alone drastically change combat, the weapons are weaker on the whole (until you get good with them, instead of just being able to kill kill kill with no ability), game moves faster, and adrenaline replaces most of the powerups. Just like UT?
Also, just a personal note, Bombing Run is a wildly good, fast paced, sports like game. You owe it to yourself to give it a shot. Even if every other game mode were utter crap, it would be worth checking out simply for that one gametype. Picture rugby with guns and you've got the basic idea.
the older text based MUDs often had a "wish system" where you would send in money for "wishes" that you could use to up stats, or get items, or what have you.
It was an accepted practice then, and it should be now. For christ sakes this is a business, not some utopian ideal we should all be striving for.
Interesting to see them offer a service that cuts down on the return they get from "leveling addiction" though.
As far as I can tell from the comments I've seen from Mark Rein, it looks like they are trying really hard to make it one box product that both windows and linux users can buy. He was dissapointed because this news is too late to get "Linux compatible" prominently featured on the box illustration I believe.
Much like Warcraft 3 in which you can install on windows or a mac client off of the same CD. Very convenient.
would you rather get anywhere from 10-80 hours a month of entertainment for $13 or go see one movie and get a soda, maybe a small popcorn?
That's value my friend, in the entertainment market. Personally I would have no bones whatsoever paying a monthly subscription fee for any online multiplayer game, provided that enabled the producers to support their product online adequately (good servers, admins, updates).