I've been using PacBell's online billing service for a few months. Each month they send an email notifying you that a new bill is ready to be viewed. They don't charge your account until you verify and approve the bill. So far, I've been very pleased with the service.
The post by the OpenSSH developers strongly implies they think they are solely entitled to OpenSSH.org. Wrong. Are we so quick to forget eToys.com versus etoy.com? Were no lessons learned?
It is unethical for a group to bully others just to acquire an asset. Mr. Alex de Joode has done nothing wrong except to own something the OpenSSH developers want. The OpenSSH developers should be reprimanded for believing they have some right to demand that Mr. Alex de Joode "sell or turn the.ORG name over to the OpenSSH developers." Shame on them.
I tend to suspect the holodeck is the writer's biggest copout right behind solving the current deleamma with tachyon particles/field.
Right behind tachyon particles? No way.
The most diabolical copout? The sudden scene change, a cousin of the Jedi mind trick.
It has been seen most recently in parody in Galaxy Quest. The crew flies the ship into a deadly mine field cued with deadly mine field music. After allowing sufficient time to empathize with the crew's surely imminent death, the scene and music cut to show the crew unconscious on the floor. Woohoo! They're safe! The captain grumbles, "Let's not do that again."
I take exception to your point that "he broke my mod along the way". I am not referring to any mods, but that Zoid's "improvements" in the gameplay were done without consideration for anything except Capture the Flag. In mucking with the physics and clipping, he changed and changed again a major component of the gameplay in FFA (free-for-all), teamplay, and 1-on-1. These are not mods, but basic deathmatch, the cornerstones of Quake.
I have no problem with adding things like spectator modes and anti-cheat code.
But things like network code, physics, and player clipping are a significant part of the essence of the game. A good player learns how to optimally interact with them. Changing these things from releases changes the game, and should be performed with care. Zoid exhibited no such restraint -- he flippantly made changes that went against original gameplay design decisions.
If I want to feel like I'm playing a different game, I'll play a different game. Various releases of QW should have zero difference in their basic gameplay. They differed.
By no means did Zoid make QuakeWorld. You can thank John Carmack for that -- for your "Fast networking code, a reasonable level of playability on a modem...". You can look through an archive of JC's.plan updates from th era to see his comments while developing the network and game protocol for QuakeWorld.
Zoid merely maintained QuakeWorld after the core developers moved on.
I was an avid player if Quake1/QuakeWorld, and not CTF. After the core of id moved on to Quake2, Zoid maintained these projects. I can't say that I fully respect him for it.
Between minor version increments of QW, he'd implement wholesale changes in the physics of the game. This may not affect players of CTF who can grapple like there's no gravity. But, for players of mods where physics had a greater impact on the gameplay, this was gamerape and pure frustration.
Moreover, I cannot compliment him on his grasp of coding or mathematics. After he took over, in QW I encountered frustrating player clipping problems. While running backward along a gradually curved wall, the player could become stuck, leading to imminent death. This (the sticking, not the death:P) did not exist before Zoid took over the project. In CTF, this situation may not occur, but it sure does in other mods including plainold FFA and Teamplay.
Overall, my impression is that Zoid developed CTF. He was a CTF player that coded for CTF. He had no vision beyond this. He had no grasp of the implications or repercussions of whimsical changes in the game or gameplay. Regardless, id tried to cast him into a greater role, and IMHO he did not rise to the challenge.
I am only one voice, but I'm not sorry to see him go.
It's a tool. Tools don't do evil things. People use tools. People do evil things. People sometimes use tools to do evil things.
Anything that a human can manipulate, by definition, can be used. No object or knowledge has a magic "stop evil" gate to keep humans from using something for good versus evil. From the point of view of the tool, it's not that the definition of good or evil arbitrary, it just plain doesn't exist.
Knowledge is a tool. Ancient China outlawed the common man from knowing math. The reasoning being that math could be used for astronomy, and astronomy could foretell the future. A common man with knowledge of the future could threaten those in control -- something those in control felt was evil.
Computers are a tool. Among other amazing things computers can do, they can strongly encrypt information. This subverts national intelligence and threatens national security (with respect to terrorist activity, what have you). The safest way to "deal with" this evil use of computers is to limit the common man's processing power. Please turn in your Pentium III 500 for this solar powered hand calculator -- it's the only way the government not invade your privacy but ensure you're not strongly encrypting sensitive information. Your sacrifice will help stop evil's spread through the world.
Look, I can go on and on and on. The point is, to "deal with it" at the level of the tool is a flawed, impossible, insane notion.
The only way to have a world in which people don't do "evil" things is not to take away or modify potentially "evil" tools or knowledge, but to construct a society and a world in which people don't try to, think to, or care to do evil things.
By limiting our world knowledge and ability now, you're inhibiting the possibility of ever reaching the utopia you implicity argue for.
I also purchased a Dvorty board. I agree, the quality of the keyboard is fair-poor.
The keys are mushy, the backslash is in the "wrong" place, and after two days of using it, the tilde key started getting stuck for apparently no reason. I would recommend not purchasing this keyboard -- possibly sticker overlays or the Kineses-Ergo keyboard are better solutions.
The existence of FUD about Dvorak is beyond understanding. The Dvorak keyboard layout was reasearched and designed for optimally for American English. With certainty, Qwerty was not. It's a relic dating to the development of punch cards. We've moved beyond entering data with punch cards, now it's time to move beyond entering data with Qwerty.
I would like to expound on your point that paper is easier on the eyes. Many in this discussion have pointed out paper has much better resolution than a monitor, and this is very true.
Just as important is that looking at a monitor all day is like looking straight into a light bulb all day.
It's only natural to not want to look straight at things that produce light. Our bodies aren't designed for it, and it's psychologically against our nature. That is, our evolutionary ancestors that enjoyed looking into the sun didn't hang around long enough to reproduce.
Even with, currently undoable
on
The Factoid
·
· Score: 1
They state their goal, "This goal implies recording every sound and every sight encountered." And, "These facts are small, say 200 bytes."
Even assuming they have the appropriate sensors for recording sight and sound, condensing that high-bandwidth information into tiny (let alone tiny and "highly compressible") factoids is far beyond the processing power available to such a very small package. Moreover, algorithms to symbolically represent such data are a very open (unsolved) research problem.
For human speech, for example, voice (who it is) and speech (what they're saying) recognition algorithms need to be applied. Beyond the intensive processor requirements for such recognition, my understanding of a factoid is that you would want the information "Joe said he liked Star Wars, Episode I" instead of Joe's long-winded comments. Such generalization requires a highly developed artificial intelligence -- one that doesn't exist present day.
Video is orders of magnitude more processor intensive and an enormously more open research problem.
Creating a Factoid requires enormous processing power and a Jane-level computer intelligence. As others have been saying, the best Factoid we can manage right now would be one that exchanges digital business cards and get-rich-quick schemes. At least it's some fun science fiction.
Slashdot has more than once posted news articles that at first appeared legitimate, only later by the unsuspecting reader to be found a 'joke'. I recall in particular an article proclaiming JWZ's death. Rob pointed out that anyone could easily and simply determine the true nature of the article if they were willing to observe the host's numeric ip address through nslookup and correlate that with a server known to collude with Slashdot.
At any rate, I was unsure at first if lanl.gov (the host domain for the article) was legitimate. It wasn't listed on a whois query.
I am now convinced no.gov's are listed in whois, but am curious as to why. Considering the roots of the question, this forum felt appropriate.
Slashdot Mirror
I've been using PacBell's online billing service for a few months. Each month they send an email notifying you that a new bill is ready to be viewed. They don't charge your account until you verify and approve the bill. So far, I've been very pleased with the service.
http://www.pacbell.com/Billing _Accounts/OnLineBilling/
I agree 100%.
.ORG name over to the OpenSSH developers." Shame on them.
The post by the OpenSSH developers strongly implies they think they are solely entitled to OpenSSH.org. Wrong. Are we so quick to forget eToys.com versus etoy.com? Were no lessons learned?
It is unethical for a group to bully others just to acquire an asset. Mr. Alex de Joode has done nothing wrong except to own something the OpenSSH developers want. The OpenSSH developers should be reprimanded for believing they have some right to demand that Mr. Alex de Joode "sell or turn the
They say everything is trivial in mathematics once you know the answer.
But if you can't remember, it can't be as trivial as year mod 4 with exceptions on centuries.
I'd say there'd have to be a stronger case than the one given for the Persian calendar to say it's flat out superior versus marginally more accurate.
I tend to suspect the holodeck is the writer's biggest copout right behind solving the current deleamma with tachyon particles/field.
Right behind tachyon particles? No way.
The most diabolical copout? The sudden scene change, a cousin of the Jedi mind trick.
It has been seen most recently in parody in Galaxy Quest. The crew flies the ship into a deadly mine field cued with deadly mine field music. After allowing sufficient time to empathize with the crew's surely imminent death, the scene and music cut to show the crew unconscious on the floor. Woohoo! They're safe! The captain grumbles, "Let's not do that again."
Sweet.
I take exception to your point that "he broke my mod along the way". I am not referring to any mods, but that Zoid's "improvements" in the gameplay were done without consideration for anything except Capture the Flag. In mucking with the physics and clipping, he changed and changed again a major component of the gameplay in FFA (free-for-all), teamplay, and 1-on-1. These are not mods, but basic deathmatch, the cornerstones of Quake.
I have no problem with adding things like spectator modes and anti-cheat code.
But things like network code, physics, and player clipping are a significant part of the essence of the game. A good player learns how to optimally interact with them. Changing these things from releases changes the game, and should be performed with care. Zoid exhibited no such restraint -- he flippantly made changes that went against original gameplay design decisions.
If I want to feel like I'm playing a different game, I'll play a different game. Various releases of QW should have zero difference in their basic gameplay. They differed.
> But then..... Oh, then.... Zoid made QuakeWorld
.plan updates from th era to see his comments while developing the network and game protocol for QuakeWorld.
By no means did Zoid make QuakeWorld. You can thank John Carmack for that -- for your "Fast networking code, a reasonable level of playability on a modem...". You can look through an archive of JC's
Zoid merely maintained QuakeWorld after the core developers moved on.
Here's my $0.02 - take it or leave it.
:P) did not exist before Zoid took over the project. In CTF, this situation may not occur, but it sure does in other mods including plainold FFA and Teamplay.
I was an avid player if Quake1/QuakeWorld, and not CTF. After the core of id moved on to Quake2, Zoid maintained these projects. I can't say that I fully respect him for it.
Between minor version increments of QW, he'd implement wholesale changes in the physics of the game. This may not affect players of CTF who can grapple like there's no gravity. But, for players of mods where physics had a greater impact on the gameplay, this was gamerape and pure frustration.
Moreover, I cannot compliment him on his grasp of coding or mathematics. After he took over, in QW I encountered frustrating player clipping problems. While running backward along a gradually curved wall, the player could become stuck, leading to imminent death. This (the sticking, not the death
Overall, my impression is that Zoid developed CTF. He was a CTF player that coded for CTF. He had no vision beyond this. He had no grasp of the implications or repercussions of whimsical changes in the game or gameplay. Regardless, id tried to cast him into a greater role, and IMHO he did not rise to the challenge.
I am only one voice, but I'm not sorry to see him go.
- Drij [BW] [IM] [GXD]
Minimize the "dark side"???
It's a tool. Tools don't do evil things. People use tools. People do evil things. People sometimes use tools to do evil things.
Anything that a human can manipulate, by definition, can be used. No object or knowledge has a magic "stop evil" gate to keep humans from using something for good versus evil. From the point of view of the tool, it's not that the definition of good or evil arbitrary, it just plain doesn't exist.
Knowledge is a tool. Ancient China outlawed the common man from knowing math. The reasoning being that math could be used for astronomy, and astronomy could foretell the future. A common man with knowledge of the future could threaten those in control -- something those in control felt was evil.
Computers are a tool. Among other amazing things computers can do, they can strongly encrypt information. This subverts national intelligence and threatens national security (with respect to terrorist activity, what have you). The safest way to "deal with" this evil use of computers is to limit the common man's processing power. Please turn in your Pentium III 500 for this solar powered hand calculator -- it's the only way the government not invade your privacy but ensure you're not strongly encrypting sensitive information. Your sacrifice will help stop evil's spread through the world.
Look, I can go on and on and on. The point is, to "deal with it" at the level of the tool is a flawed, impossible, insane notion.
The only way to have a world in which people don't do "evil" things is not to take away or modify potentially "evil" tools or knowledge, but to construct a society and a world in which people don't try to, think to, or care to do evil things.
By limiting our world knowledge and ability now, you're inhibiting the possibility of ever reaching the utopia you implicity argue for.
- Cory
I also purchased a Dvorty board. I agree, the quality of the keyboard is fair-poor.
The keys are mushy, the backslash is in the "wrong" place, and after two days of using it, the tilde key started getting stuck for apparently no reason. I would recommend not purchasing this keyboard -- possibly sticker overlays or the Kineses-Ergo keyboard are better solutions.
The existence of FUD about Dvorak is beyond understanding. The Dvorak keyboard layout was reasearched and designed for optimally for American English. With certainty, Qwerty was not. It's a relic dating to the development of punch cards. We've moved beyond entering data with punch cards, now it's time to move beyond entering data with Qwerty.
I would like to expound on your point that paper is easier on the eyes. Many in this discussion have pointed out paper has much better resolution than a monitor, and this is very true.
Just as important is that looking at a monitor all day is like looking straight into a light bulb all day.
It's only natural to not want to look straight at things that produce light. Our bodies aren't designed for it, and it's psychologically against our nature. That is, our evolutionary ancestors that enjoyed looking into the sun didn't hang around long enough to reproduce.
They state their goal, "This goal implies recording every sound and every sight encountered." And, "These facts are small, say 200 bytes."
Even assuming they have the appropriate sensors for recording sight and sound, condensing that high-bandwidth information into tiny (let alone tiny and "highly compressible") factoids is far beyond the processing power available to such a very small package. Moreover, algorithms to symbolically represent such data are a very open (unsolved) research problem.
For human speech, for example, voice (who it is) and speech (what they're saying) recognition algorithms need to be applied. Beyond the intensive processor requirements for such recognition, my understanding of a factoid is that you would want the information "Joe said he liked Star Wars, Episode I" instead of Joe's long-winded comments. Such generalization requires a highly developed artificial intelligence -- one that doesn't exist present day.
Video is orders of magnitude more processor intensive and an enormously more open research problem.
Creating a Factoid requires enormous processing power and a Jane-level computer intelligence. As others have been saying, the best Factoid we can manage right now would be one that exchanges digital business cards and get-rich-quick schemes. At least it's some fun science fiction.
I noticed this message was deemed off topic.
.gov's are listed in whois, but am curious as to why. Considering the roots of the question, this forum felt appropriate.
Slashdot has more than once posted news articles that at first appeared legitimate, only later by the unsuspecting reader to be found a 'joke'. I recall in particular an article proclaiming JWZ's death. Rob pointed out that anyone could easily and simply determine the true nature of the article if they were willing to observe the host's numeric ip address through nslookup and correlate that with a server known to collude with Slashdot.
At any rate, I was unsure at first if lanl.gov (the host domain for the article) was legitimate. It wasn't listed on a whois query.
I am now convinced no