DARPA funded the project, and DARPA fund lots of projects. I think a debate about whether DARPA is good or bad is pretty out-of-scope for this particular work: we made a game that might show how software verification could be crowdsourced.
The games do try to be fun, that's why none of them are "look at this loop and write an invariant". Xylem dresses up the problem statement as logic puzzles that surround the growth of exotic plants. I don't have an iPad to play the final version of Xylem on, but we tried hard to come up with a compelling game.
I don't believe the expected player base really cares about whether the project was funded by DARPA or not. I understand if you don't, but I think you would also have to stop using the Internet if you have such an issue with DARPA funded projects:)
I worked on Xylem when I was a grad student at UCSC. I was not on the team when it launched, so my info may be out of date.
What players are being asked to do is find loop invariants for code. The invariants are hard for a computer to come up with (and be useful), but are easier to check given certain bounds. So there is no predetermined win state, each answer is checked server-side to see if it holds up within the bounds (or, if the answer is already known, the cache hit is returned). If the invariant is complex and holds, it gets scored highly. If it's trivial and holds, it gets a lower score. If it doesn't hold, the instance where it doesn't hold is returned to the player.
I'd like to see you have the balls to actually mention which university you seem intent on slagging off for some bizarre ego-trip on Slashdot, of all places.
If you're going to go into such a vitriolic rant, I think you owe that university, and us, that much.
I know this is Slashdot, and actually RTFA is rare, but had you actually done so, you'd have read this:
'"When you are trying to preserve anything you are trying to preserve the most important things about that artefact," she said. "With video games we do not yet know what is important."'
CNN and Fox are being archived very well already. But we have large gaps, and it's important to keep as much as we can, just in case.
We've been very good thus far at preserving our culture for studies by future generations, but that was because everything we made was stored in a physical entity. It didn't matter whether the creators thought it important or not, we at least could come back to it in later generations if we needed to.
The Digital Age has meant we're losing huge swathes of information because we can't keep up. Archive.org is going to be amazingly important, but it'll take later generations to figure out why.
I'm very pleased that someone has realized that the beginnings of virtual worlds will also be important. We can't possibly contemplate where they're going to go in just 50 years. We're going to want to know how they started when we get there.
The difference between Von Ahn's work and that before it is quite simple: he dresses everything up as a game.
Games are addictive, and this is why his projects (like the ESP Game) have continued, whereas others have faded away. It's not rocket/computer science, just a good bit of reasoning that creates very good results.
I find it hard to listen to the ramblings of any old man, even the one who made Pong, who believes that the solution to gaming's ills lies in the serving of a reasonably priced meal.
I think it's really sad someone was so determined to do this. FSJ was funny because there was always a tiny, *tiny* inkling it could actually be RSJ. But now we know it's not.
It's rather like running around Disney World and pulling the heads off the characters. We know they're fake... but do you have to completely ruin it for everyone?
When I worked for a ResNet that shall go unnamed, almost all students would admit to copyright infringement when asked in a formal setting. There was not a single case where the MPAA/RIAA fired off an email where the student was not guilty.
I know it's terribly fashionable around these parts to protest that universities should be standing up for students and such, but it is one thing to be the university that won't hand over names with IP addresses, and quite another to be the one that the MPAA/RIAA decides to take to court over the issue. The legal grey area, at least in the UK, had my ResNet worried, and felt they had to be seen doing something. Whether that is true in the US is another matter, and I can't comment on it.
Honestly, I don't blame Kansas for their stance, and I don't think they are doing the students a disservice. Presuming they have some way of verifying claims made against students, why shouldn't they attempt to crack down on illegal uses of their bandwidth?
Every single article I've read about this poll gets confused and doesn't mention that it is a poll on games that must stand up today, which is why Pong or Doom aren't in the Top 10. Which of course, has lead to everyone to go off on a tangent and say silly things like "Mario Bros 1 should be number 1" and things.
This wasn't helped by the BBC deciding to choose a misleading headline and then burying this information at the bottom. I guess "journalists" don't read past the first two paragraphs anymore.
Bandwidth is terrible; the links out to the Pacific are just horrifically bad. Once it gets to 6PM, the available bandwidth falls through the floor and it chugs like crazy. Only a couple of ISP plans let you have unlimited transfer, which, coming from the UK, is utterly bizarre to me.
Wages as IT workers are good against other workers in the country, but pretty much everything comes with a higher premium attached because of import/export or something. Food costs more. Technology certainly costs more. Cars cost more than the US, but less than the UK. Rent is a bit less than the UK. It's certainly not a place where I think the time is something you can spend investing cash; the exchange rate doesn't help that either.
You can certainly live quite happily on the wages you get, but the time won't be spent saving money, so if you're looking to get on the property ladder or have loans you need to pay back home, finanicially, it won't be a clever idea.
Yeah, the quickie marriage has been considered, which is quite sad in itself I think. It's not something I want to do, because as another commenter suggested, I only intend to do it once. That's why we're here in NZ just letting the relationship carry along it's natural course.
Yes, I agree with you. I certainly didn't mean to advocate free immigration or anything of that magnitude, although I know it sounded that way:)
Let's be realllllly bad and say all technology is in California; for argument. And let's also say that all the H1-B apps were for technology companies.
Google tells me that there are just under 34 million people living in CA right now. Rounding the figures, that's 520 Californians to every H1-B. Obviously, if you start widening the net, the number of citizens per visa goes up. I think there is certainly more room for more people; if it's proven they are well-skilled. New Zealand says you qualify as a tech worker if you have at least a BSc and three years experience, although they don't yet have the experience quota go down for higher education after that. I think these sort of people would be worth it. Heck, even make them take the US citizenship test to make sure they're coming to the US to integrate and not simply leech.
It shouldn't be a free lunch, but it's just too hard right now.
You don't happen to know of an equivalent for UK citizens do you? It seems that I'm not eligible for the green card lottery, and I haven't found a UK-specific visa like the E-3 for Aussies.
You aren't wrong, but getting the H1-B is difficult enough already. The company has to want you really bad to burn up an application, without a guarantee of success, that only happens once a year, and if I remember right, have proof that an American applicant couldn't have filled the position. For the applicant it's all those things plus convincing the company you're worth it and probably having to fly there to see said company in person.
I don't see what else this would achieve without just being a way of gouging money, and further screwing job-seekers who actually want to pay taxes, contribute to the economy and the growth of American companies. I don't subscribe to the idea that skilled workers take American jobs, I believe they help companies grow and generate more jobs in the long-term.
I think that IT is indeed a global economy, and if America is not willing to take on the view that companies can benefit from cherry-picking out of an international workforce, someone else, like Canada or Sweden, will, and companies there will grow.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a bitter UK citizen with a Masters degree that can't get a visa to live with his Californian girlfriend that I met during my year of study in the USA. We had to come to New Zealand for us both to continue being together without getting married.
Tell me about it. Those fuckers are like golddust. I studied at a US university for a year, and met my girlfriend. We wanted to be together, but the only way I could stay in the country was an H1-B... and you have to have three things for that to happen:
1. A company that wants you that badly to burn one of their possible H1-B grants on you. 2. Enough H1-Bs that year (which is never the case). 3. A plausible reason why a US citizen couldn't be hired for the position.
Getting just number 1 is nigh-on impossible as a graduate. The other two is not even anything you can really affect.
So we moved to New Zealand. Only if we can marry can we go back, and my Masters (or perhaps PhD) degree will be able to be put to good use for a good company in NorCal.
Instead of signing petitions, why don't they just release a couple new albums like 2Pac? It's totally paying for the henny and the hos in the afterlife.
Have to say, I feel the same way about the people you work with, and I am have had the same thing happen to me. They aren't as passionate as me about computers and coding in general. None of them ever read Slashdot, for example/ And I get the feeling that unless you work for somewhere in the Valley or some niche development house, you are not likely to find that either.
Good luck getting back into uni, I am planning to do the same, but I will actually bite the bullet to bag the PhD, and hopefully get a job researching for someone.
I agree with pretty much everything you have said here.
I think a lot of people confuse "degree" with "job ticket", which isn't the truth. I think the people who shout loudest on/. about their shitty jobs have to stop blaming the industry/company/country, and start looking harder. These people scared me while I was taking my degree, now I have a hard time listening to what they say without giggling, or wondering exactly how poor their degree was.
I moved to New Zealand after I graduated, and found a job in the top floor of a high-rise looking out over the sea in three weeks. Granted, the skills shortage here is absolutely dire, but if NZ can do it economy-wise, it can be expected in most other Western countries. None of my friends who graduated this year along with me have had trouble; one is even working for Industrial Light and Magic, not because she did amazing in her degree, but because she had the drive and ambition to make it happen.
I highly recommend anyone who is still finding it tough to take an English class. My job here was posted 6 times, and they kept turning people down, even though they knew the skills shortage was so bad, because the standard of English, written and verbal, was so low. If you get some English skills, stop blaming your "bad social skills" or whatever other crutch you are leaning on to explain why you never get past the interview stage, you can get great jobs. Your resume will shine in and of itself.
And yes, you do have to move. I sympathise with people who are bound to their hometown by family or whatever. In which case, you gotta play the economy you are in. Google are not going to move to Iowa for you. You're going to have to accept the cards your location dealt you, and comp sci isn't it.
Personally, I'm going back to uni to get a PhD. Business isn't so bad, but I'd like more freedom, and I have come to understand that that freedom is restricted by either the company or the customer. I like solving problems, but I want to solve them my own way with my own tools. That sort of freedom isn't available outside R&D as far as I can see. I know I can get it researching either for academia or corporate research labs, but I need the PhD first. I'm impatient, and I'm not happy to wait for this sort of freedom to happen or be gifted to me. Perhaps that is the difference between the people who are and are not complaining on/. ?
Then perhaps you need to jettison your ego; you don't seem to have the CV to back it up.
You do seem to be in a catch-22, I am guessing the parent was right by saying your qualification was below average. You can't get a graduate job, which expects a good degree but no experience, but you can't get a normal job which expects experience, but not necessarily a hot qualification.
Your only option is to start bagging experience pro bono. Try asking for work experience, for free, at companies. Expand your own horizons and skills while you are doing it; I learnt Ruby for kicks a couple of weeks ago, and it's something I can put on the application form.
Having graduated from Bristol Uni this year, none of my friends have had any difficulty getting jobs (if they wanted them). The jobs are out there, you just have to look harder and/or make more concessions I think.
Slashdot Mirror
DARPA funded the project, and DARPA fund lots of projects. I think a debate about whether DARPA is good or bad is pretty out-of-scope for this particular work: we made a game that might show how software verification could be crowdsourced.
The games do try to be fun, that's why none of them are "look at this loop and write an invariant". Xylem dresses up the problem statement as logic puzzles that surround the growth of exotic plants. I don't have an iPad to play the final version of Xylem on, but we tried hard to come up with a compelling game.
I don't believe the expected player base really cares about whether the project was funded by DARPA or not. I understand if you don't, but I think you would also have to stop using the Internet if you have such an issue with DARPA funded projects :)
I worked on Xylem when I was a grad student at UCSC. I was not on the team when it launched, so my info may be out of date.
What players are being asked to do is find loop invariants for code. The invariants are hard for a computer to come up with (and be useful), but are easier to check given certain bounds. So there is no predetermined win state, each answer is checked server-side to see if it holds up within the bounds (or, if the answer is already known, the cache hit is returned). If the invariant is complex and holds, it gets scored highly. If it's trivial and holds, it gets a lower score. If it doesn't hold, the instance where it doesn't hold is returned to the player.
Does this help?
I'd like to see you have the balls to actually mention which university you seem intent on slagging off for some bizarre ego-trip on Slashdot, of all places.
If you're going to go into such a vitriolic rant, I think you owe that university, and us, that much.
I know this is Slashdot, and actually RTFA is rare, but had you actually done so, you'd have read this:
'"When you are trying to preserve anything you are trying to preserve the most important things about that artefact," she said. "With video games we do not yet know what is important."'
CNN and Fox are being archived very well already. But we have large gaps, and it's important to keep as much as we can, just in case.
We've been very good thus far at preserving our culture for studies by future generations, but that was because everything we made was stored in a physical entity. It didn't matter whether the creators thought it important or not, we at least could come back to it in later generations if we needed to.
The Digital Age has meant we're losing huge swathes of information because we can't keep up. Archive.org is going to be amazingly important, but it'll take later generations to figure out why.
I'm very pleased that someone has realized that the beginnings of virtual worlds will also be important. We can't possibly contemplate where they're going to go in just 50 years. We're going to want to know how they started when we get there.
The IOC should take this seriously. The air quality on the moon is probably better than at Beijing.
*buh-dum-tish*
I'm here all night, please tip your waitress on the way out.
Yeah, GWAP seriously needs a way of voting out griefers. It's real fun sitting in a game for four minutes with a player that isn't there.
The difference between Von Ahn's work and that before it is quite simple: he dresses everything up as a game.
Games are addictive, and this is why his projects (like the ESP Game) have continued, whereas others have faded away. It's not rocket/computer science, just a good bit of reasoning that creates very good results.
I find it hard to listen to the ramblings of any old man, even the one who made Pong, who believes that the solution to gaming's ills lies in the serving of a reasonably priced meal.
I think it's really sad someone was so determined to do this. FSJ was funny because there was always a tiny, *tiny* inkling it could actually be RSJ. But now we know it's not.
It's rather like running around Disney World and pulling the heads off the characters. We know they're fake... but do you have to completely ruin it for everyone?
When I worked for a ResNet that shall go unnamed, almost all students would admit to copyright infringement when asked in a formal setting. There was not a single case where the MPAA/RIAA fired off an email where the student was not guilty. I know it's terribly fashionable around these parts to protest that universities should be standing up for students and such, but it is one thing to be the university that won't hand over names with IP addresses, and quite another to be the one that the MPAA/RIAA decides to take to court over the issue. The legal grey area, at least in the UK, had my ResNet worried, and felt they had to be seen doing something. Whether that is true in the US is another matter, and I can't comment on it. Honestly, I don't blame Kansas for their stance, and I don't think they are doing the students a disservice. Presuming they have some way of verifying claims made against students, why shouldn't they attempt to crack down on illegal uses of their bandwidth?
Mod parent up!
Every single article I've read about this poll gets confused and doesn't mention that it is a poll on games that must stand up today, which is why Pong or Doom aren't in the Top 10. Which of course, has lead to everyone to go off on a tangent and say silly things like "Mario Bros 1 should be number 1" and things.
This wasn't helped by the BBC deciding to choose a misleading headline and then burying this information at the bottom. I guess "journalists" don't read past the first two paragraphs anymore.
Oh god.
I've been so brainwashed I forgot about the bottom-posting ever even existing.
The Internet is rubbish now.
I need to make alt.internet.was.better.in.98
The only people that voted for Netiquette are the people that don't understand why it used to exist in the first place.
I remember the times when good netiquette was thought essential (which was not that long ago).
"lol ur a netiket fag i typ lik i want"
Bandwidth is terrible; the links out to the Pacific are just horrifically bad. Once it gets to 6PM, the available bandwidth falls through the floor and it chugs like crazy. Only a couple of ISP plans let you have unlimited transfer, which, coming from the UK, is utterly bizarre to me.
Wages as IT workers are good against other workers in the country, but pretty much everything comes with a higher premium attached because of import/export or something. Food costs more. Technology certainly costs more. Cars cost more than the US, but less than the UK. Rent is a bit less than the UK. It's certainly not a place where I think the time is something you can spend investing cash; the exchange rate doesn't help that either.
You can certainly live quite happily on the wages you get, but the time won't be spent saving money, so if you're looking to get on the property ladder or have loans you need to pay back home, finanicially, it won't be a clever idea.
Wellington is a lovely city though.
Yeah, we've looked into the marriage thing. It's not off the table, but it's just not the right time for it. Not yet.
:)
Yes, not having to worry about status is a wonderful thing! I'm glad it worked out for you guys too
Yeah, the quickie marriage has been considered, which is quite sad in itself I think. It's not something I want to do, because as another commenter suggested, I only intend to do it once. That's why we're here in NZ just letting the relationship carry along it's natural course.
Yes, I agree with you. I certainly didn't mean to advocate free immigration or anything of that magnitude, although I know it sounded that way :)
Let's be realllllly bad and say all technology is in California; for argument. And let's also say that all the H1-B apps were for technology companies.
Google tells me that there are just under 34 million people living in CA right now. Rounding the figures, that's 520 Californians to every H1-B. Obviously, if you start widening the net, the number of citizens per visa goes up. I think there is certainly more room for more people; if it's proven they are well-skilled. New Zealand says you qualify as a tech worker if you have at least a BSc and three years experience, although they don't yet have the experience quota go down for higher education after that. I think these sort of people would be worth it. Heck, even make them take the US citizenship test to make sure they're coming to the US to integrate and not simply leech.
It shouldn't be a free lunch, but it's just too hard right now.
You don't happen to know of an equivalent for UK citizens do you? It seems that I'm not eligible for the green card lottery, and I haven't found a UK-specific visa like the E-3 for Aussies.
You aren't wrong, but getting the H1-B is difficult enough already. The company has to want you really bad to burn up an application, without a guarantee of success, that only happens once a year, and if I remember right, have proof that an American applicant couldn't have filled the position. For the applicant it's all those things plus convincing the company you're worth it and probably having to fly there to see said company in person.
I don't see what else this would achieve without just being a way of gouging money, and further screwing job-seekers who actually want to pay taxes, contribute to the economy and the growth of American companies. I don't subscribe to the idea that skilled workers take American jobs, I believe they help companies grow and generate more jobs in the long-term.
I think that IT is indeed a global economy, and if America is not willing to take on the view that companies can benefit from cherry-picking out of an international workforce, someone else, like Canada or Sweden, will, and companies there will grow.
Disclaimer: Yes, I am a bitter UK citizen with a Masters degree that can't get a visa to live with his Californian girlfriend that I met during my year of study in the USA. We had to come to New Zealand for us both to continue being together without getting married.
Tell me about it. Those fuckers are like golddust. I studied at a US university for a year, and met my girlfriend. We wanted to be together, but the only way I could stay in the country was an H1-B... and you have to have three things for that to happen:
1. A company that wants you that badly to burn one of their possible H1-B grants on you.
2. Enough H1-Bs that year (which is never the case).
3. A plausible reason why a US citizen couldn't be hired for the position.
Getting just number 1 is nigh-on impossible as a graduate. The other two is not even anything you can really affect.
So we moved to New Zealand. Only if we can marry can we go back, and my Masters (or perhaps PhD) degree will be able to be put to good use for a good company in NorCal.
Instead of signing petitions, why don't they just release a couple new albums like 2Pac? It's totally paying for the henny and the hos in the afterlife.
Have to say, I feel the same way about the people you work with, and I am have had the same thing happen to me. They aren't as passionate as me about computers and coding in general. None of them ever read Slashdot, for example/ And I get the feeling that unless you work for somewhere in the Valley or some niche development house, you are not likely to find that either.
Good luck getting back into uni, I am planning to do the same, but I will actually bite the bullet to bag the PhD, and hopefully get a job researching for someone.
If you aren't prepared to move to where the jobs you want are, I find it difficult to understand how you can complain.
It's like being a professional surfer and moaning that the waves in Scotland aren't very good.
I agree with pretty much everything you have said here.
/. about their shitty jobs have to stop blaming the industry/company/country, and start looking harder. These people scared me while I was taking my degree, now I have a hard time listening to what they say without giggling, or wondering exactly how poor their degree was.
/. ?
I think a lot of people confuse "degree" with "job ticket", which isn't the truth. I think the people who shout loudest on
I moved to New Zealand after I graduated, and found a job in the top floor of a high-rise looking out over the sea in three weeks. Granted, the skills shortage here is absolutely dire, but if NZ can do it economy-wise, it can be expected in most other Western countries. None of my friends who graduated this year along with me have had trouble; one is even working for Industrial Light and Magic, not because she did amazing in her degree, but because she had the drive and ambition to make it happen.
I highly recommend anyone who is still finding it tough to take an English class. My job here was posted 6 times, and they kept turning people down, even though they knew the skills shortage was so bad, because the standard of English, written and verbal, was so low. If you get some English skills, stop blaming your "bad social skills" or whatever other crutch you are leaning on to explain why you never get past the interview stage, you can get great jobs. Your resume will shine in and of itself.
And yes, you do have to move. I sympathise with people who are bound to their hometown by family or whatever. In which case, you gotta play the economy you are in. Google are not going to move to Iowa for you. You're going to have to accept the cards your location dealt you, and comp sci isn't it.
Personally, I'm going back to uni to get a PhD. Business isn't so bad, but I'd like more freedom, and I have come to understand that that freedom is restricted by either the company or the customer. I like solving problems, but I want to solve them my own way with my own tools. That sort of freedom isn't available outside R&D as far as I can see. I know I can get it researching either for academia or corporate research labs, but I need the PhD first. I'm impatient, and I'm not happy to wait for this sort of freedom to happen or be gifted to me. Perhaps that is the difference between the people who are and are not complaining on
Then perhaps you need to jettison your ego; you don't seem to have the CV to back it up.
You do seem to be in a catch-22, I am guessing the parent was right by saying your qualification was below average. You can't get a graduate job, which expects a good degree but no experience, but you can't get a normal job which expects experience, but not necessarily a hot qualification.
Your only option is to start bagging experience pro bono. Try asking for work experience, for free, at companies. Expand your own horizons and skills while you are doing it; I learnt Ruby for kicks a couple of weeks ago, and it's something I can put on the application form.
Having graduated from Bristol Uni this year, none of my friends have had any difficulty getting jobs (if they wanted them). The jobs are out there, you just have to look harder and/or make more concessions I think.