This goes together, and is my reason why Amiga died, Amiga's OS was pretty slick but when you got it out of the box you could do practicallty NOTHING with it, everything you WANTED to do with it cost money and was hard to locate a vendor to sell it to you, wanted to do a little word processing?
IIRC, all computers at the time were basically like that - even Windows 3.11 computers. At best, you had a simple text editor and the other minimalistic software - everything else had to be purchased.
Windows had an in with BASIC included
Actually, that was DOS. While W95 had a copy of basic on the CD, it is ineffective because of interpreter bugs (e.g. "ON ERROR RESUME NEXT" did not function wehn it should) and editor bugs (which gave an illusion of a line of code disappearing from your program.)
IF you needed to do anything serious, you needed to buy a C compiler. Even then, you still needed a hardware information since you required many low-level activities to do anything useful.
Is it just me, or are people forgetting to check their sources? If this "famous" quote was real, it should be pinned down to a specific point in time rather than just a vague newspaper in 1981 or so - even if it was taken out of context (e.g. stripping away the trailing "for now.")
How can you *prove* that you *intended* to download a copyrighted file?
Files are often faked, and mis-labeled. Who is to prove i was KNEW i was downloading a full copyrighted movie and not a trailer, or a demo copy of an application...
Or that my wireless wasnt hacked.. or pc..
Proving downloading is too 'iffy'.
They can prove it easily. When they connect to a P2P network, they see the same meta-information that you do - if they can tell that the file is most likely a violation, it's easy to claim that a "reasonable person" would be able to tell as well.
If you "accidently" downloaded a full product, keep the torrent in a special archive called "mislabeled". Also, be sure to report the torrent as pirated.
IANAL, but due diligance will save you a lot (except in some very rare situations.)
While lacking the sophistication of today's controllers, the Atari 2600 joystick was still a lot of fun for those of us who were actually around when it first came out. And at least with one button you didn't have to wonder which one to press.
I've used a similar design from the Commodore 64: a ball-grip joystick with a single button on the base (actually there were two, but they did the same thing.)
The most critical problem with these joysticks was that it was beginning to be used for arcade ports, which required two buttons - primary fire and an alternate fire (super-weapon, select powerup, etc.) The only arcade style game that did not require two buttons this was Wizball, as powerup selection was done by wiggling the joystick. (I preferred the seperate key, as it doesn't interfere with movement.)
There was also a game within Hero's Quest/Quest For Glory which was similar, albeit that was more about guiding a monster through a maze rather than teaching it to run the maze per se.
The maze in that game involved no learning at all. The maze mouse simply followed the left/right hand wall taking whatever path it stumbles upon.
The objective of that game was simply to build the path as necessairy, before running out of magic points, and before the other mouse finishes.
I tried using it for myself but gave up because both of the games I play under XP require admin privs to run (and that's pretty much the only reason I have an XP box).
You could try to download the Microsoft Compatability Toolkit. This package contains a compatability administrator, which allows assigning fixes to a given application.
One of the fixes is "ForceAdminAccess", which lies to the application about admin privilages being available. This was required since certain programs whine about beind unable to work wrthout full access to the system when they just need to write to a specific key in HKLM (or write to the installation directory, or c:\WINDOWS\something) Other than that, contact tech support.
If a game cannot run in a LUA, and tech support cannot correct the problem (nor give a good enough reason), go to user review sites and rate the game down, saying it required the young children to have full access to the system - a highly dangerous risk. while this might not dent the total sales, it does help set the reputation of the developers in the do-or-die computer software industry.
The password was widely known and easy, it's not the kids fault
For those who don't know, students were given physical access to laptops. They were then charged with theft for guessing the local password to install unauthorized software.
Riiiighht. And If you leave your window open or door unlocked then everyone has the right to walk into your house and do whatever they feel like? Or maybe it's YOUR fault that you didn't put a strong enough lock on the door.
Your analogy breaks down because the student is given physical access to the machine. A more appropriate analogy would be giving students a locked box, telling that they need to use the contents, and punishing the students for unlocking a box with anything other than the special key given to that student.
They all knew that "hacking" their computers and downloading music and porn was wrong.
I have a computer at home. Is it wrong to hack into my own computer?
Any decent entity should know that any physical access will negate any security measures (aside from grabbing an decryption key from a remote server, but even that can be bypassed eventually.) If you don't want students to eventually get full access to the system, don't give them unsupervised access to the laptops to begin with.
BTW, any software damage caused by installation of unauthorized software is repairable. Check the http://www.kasd.org/web121/faq.htmlFAQ, specifically the question "Can a student use their laptop computer over the summer?" which states that the laptops will be cleaned over the summer period. Also, any half-decent computer should have a jumper (or equivalent thereof) that resets the firmware to the original settings, should malicious software install itself into the BIOS.
Ultimatly, this should never be a felony conviction. While taking away the laptops is acceptable (assuming that the punishment is valid), criminal charges will be counterproductive as it destroys whatever respect children have for the law.
Most laptops and commercially made desktops have a serial number, so if you make an simple algerithm out of that code (example if the serial number is "6835x" you can make the admin password be "yietx" because "[Y][I][E][T]" are the keys under "[6][8][3][5]" on a QWERTY keyboard. so that way hopefully maybe someone would find the password for one computer, but hopefully they wouldn't figure out the simple algerithm you made. or you could just make a simple database with the laptop serial number that is linked to a truely unique password.
This is generally considered obvious. When enough students find their passwords, at least one of them will put 2 and 2 together and figure out the pattern. (It won't be as obvious if you use a DVORAK keyboard somewhere in the algorithm.)
Something better is to put the password into a hash algorithm. While not secure, it's good enough for the average user.
now here comes some A.C. post about how "This is slashdot and we use dvorak keyboards"
One other thing - Windows XP, by default, assumes you use a QWERTY keyboard when typing in a password. As soon as you log in, passwords typed in work by the current keyboard layout (e.g. DVORAK). Given that some people memorize which keys are pressed as opposed to the actual password (which they do - there's no way around it), you'll end up with "invalid password" prompts.
FFS never mind this, why the fuck are kids being given laptops in the first place? High school students have NO use for all this equipment, they are going to use it for music, porn and games and very very occasionally write a report on it.
High school students can use the equipment appropriatly - use it to take noted much more quickly than writing it down on paper, as well as making it easier to transfer work between home and school.
what the fuck happened to using the computer room or their home computer or even just writing with a bloody pen?
The problem with using the computer room or home computer is that it isolates where work can be done - it may only be done at home or at school. While it can be tranferred by a floppy disk, that media format is generally unreliable (especially when you buy low-quality bulk floppies.)
Pen and paper, while guarenteed to work, isn't recommended. My writing is awful, and has never improved since whenever. (I've read that printing is a recommended alternative instead.)
On a personal note, when I was in high-school, I asked the teacher if I could copy stuff from the network drive to a floppy. I wasn't allowed to do it directly and had to rely on the teacher copying the data over. Naturally, she forgot to do so during the next week, along with the next few months - by the time I got the disk, I lost interest what I wanted. (It wouldn't be useful to be anyway - I didn't have a copy of Visual Basic at the time.)
This is just an insane waste of resources for no purpose other than to hype the fact that everyone has laptops.
Correct. Besides, much cheaper (and just as suitable alternatives) can be purchased second hand, and doesn't need to run anything not taught at the high school level. (i.e. it only needs MS Office and MS-Paint or some other simple things.)
I'm also not sure where they got the idea that the required software costs $1800. Generally, that means there's much more stuff included than there should be - perhaps they want students to install redundant software.
Actually, this attack doensn't work "well" with Firefox on Mac, which uses sheets [utah.edu] to display JavaScript dialog (alert, promt, confirm)
There's no reason that it should "work" on Windows either. Standard Mozilla dialogues for failed page loads are already tied to a window, and appear only if that given window has focus.
Of course, there's still some dialogues that transend window focus, such as Mozilla being unable to verify an SSL certificate.
I might as well throw in a third reason. If your offspring is a developer (e.g. programmer, 3D artist, etc.), then he needs to buy the latest engine game, even if it has a 'M'ature rating. (But this is a special case that applies to only a few games.)
2) I checked into the games myself. I didn't use the stupid rating system.
"Stupid" is a bit generous. As an example, Jagged Alliance 2 got 'T'een, while Operation Flashpoint gets 'M'. If anything, it seems that the rating is based on the number of red pixels - ignoring the fact that JA2 contains just as much blood, and a pr0n/di1do shop.
The problem with it is that, even in the hands of a noob, it's undefeatable.
I've received a near-direct hit with a panzer, and survived. Level 4 engineering gives the Flak-jacket ability, which halves explosive damage. Adren self can also help.
In the hands of a newbie, the panzer isn't as much of a threat compered against an experienced veteren, for the following reasons: - Newbies tend to have low accurracy or reaction time. - Even on a case where a hit does occurr, the panzer will have a very long reload time. The soldier will only have a pistol to defend against, unless supported by other teammates. - When wielding the panzer, movement speed is reduced (until the appropriate skill level. ) - If a player is panzering, he can't be doing other helpful things, such as planting explosives. If it isn't for the Panzer, there's basically no point in playing the soldier class.
While the panzer is dangerous, there's plenty of other things to worry about in RTCW. (e.g. Satchel charges placed at choke points, flamers on a choke point, mines on a choke point, etc.)
Re:All very nice and goot, but what about gamers?
on
Advocating Dvorak
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· Score: 1
Better yet,.OEU
The only reason QWERTY seems to be popular with most shooters is because of luck - us'E' and 'R'eload just happened to be near where near the most common rebinding.
Of course, it's rebind-hell if you use a DVORAK keyboard. Other than that, any FPS game should have zero problem handling alternate layouts - if they do, the game is faulty.
that many who are enthusiastic about the speed and ease of Dvorak layouts simply make that experience because they actually *did make* and effort to learn proper typing with that layout, but probably never made a similar effort with QWERTY.
Doubtful. QWERTY keyboards are common enough that they are basically industry standard.
FYI, I've managed to average at least 70 WPM on QWERTY. While I haven't tried Devorak, the design looks much better, as there is much less worry about mis-typing the most commonly used keys (i.e. e, t, a, o, i, n, s are all under the standard typing position.) While it will take some time to re-train, it does look like I will get a speed boost with Dvorak.
Now I'm not a sad fantasist who thinks people actually RTFA, but you could read the/. summery. It's available for Linux, Mac and Windows (in other words anything, given someone who wants to port it), and it runs on a modified Quake 1 engine
I know that this is a little old, but the fact it runs on the Quake 1 engine is the game's greatest weakness.
While it's true that you can do programming in Quake C to make the game play as you want, most of the game activity takes place in the binary file - if you want to make a mod involving force fields that one team can pass through, you'll have to tweak the engine.
Any number can be converted to a fraction simply by putting that number over some power of ten.
Convert 0.934 to a fraction? Easy, it's 934/1000.
Convert 934.567 to a fraction? Easy, it's 934567/1000.
So long as you know your decimal places (tenths, hundredths, thousandths, etc), then you can convert any decimal number to a fraction. After that, it's just a matter of simplifying.
Convert 0.3333333... (etc) to a fraction? Won't work using that method. Even though you know there's an infinite number of decimal places, it is ineffective because multiplying by an infinite number messes up finite math.
Not all is lost, as there's an algebraic way of doing it:
x = 0.3333333... 10x = 3.3333333... 10x - x = (3.333333...) - (0.3333333...) 9x = 3 x= 3/9 x=1/3
If you need a calculator to convert from decimal to fraction, you should not have been allowed to graduate from an elementary school.
You need a calculator or computer if you encounter anything above several decimal places - otherwise, you'll need a lot of paper to confirm whether or not 849 can be simplified (as you have to divide by every prime number below 30.)
This is no one's fault but my own and it wasn't until I took responibility for my life that things started to change but I do honestly wish my parents had kicked me out of the house in high school and forced me to go out and be social; it would have made college life a lot easier.,/blockquote>
Generally, that causes more damage than it's worth. Most of the people I've been with were exploitive, only wanting my help when they were in need, and being insulting at all other times. While things did change at College, the damage was already done.
This is worse with laws (and social engineering) that protect young offenders from prosicution for serious crimes such as murder. When it gets to the point where a criminal shouts the "Don't touch me, I'm a young offender" defence, then it shows a severe problem with the criminal system.
An AI that reacted like a human brain in a Half-Life game would wet it's pants. You want an AI that will panic under fire?
In addition to yes (as the other poster already mentioned), the HL AI does panic under fire. They don't do it all the time - usually they hold their position and try to you out. If you throw a grenade, then they will try to flee.
I've had computers crash, servers crash, networks crash..... I've never had an "email crash" - I'm not really sure what that would entail. I'm sure you've heard of a specially formed e-mail message that causes Microsoft Outlook to crash - it involves a buffer overflow on the Date field. (The crash was actually in a PGP module, but crashed MS-Outlook nonetheless.) This is a crash involving an e-mail, and can be used as an example of an e-mail crash.
However, the term More commonly implies that a computer failure has disrupted e-mail access. (e.g. a corporate-level e-mail server crashes or slows down to unacceptable levels, making it impossible to use the e-mail system for an entire week.)
While "e-mail crash" might not be the correct technical term (for either of these cases), it is understood by most people.
(BTW, I suspect you posted the message to the wrong topic. But that doesn't matter too much.)
I believe that rocket jumping wasn't a planned feature in the original quake,
It wasn't considered to the level of bypassing obstacles (mainly because it would require a bit more complex level design), but it was considered. As another poster mentioned, E4M4 has a secret that requires a grenade jump. It was thought as early as Doom, map E3M6 (and also in the final level of RotT.)
It only became popular after it was discovered that +mlook activated permanent mouse look - where players could aim their rocket anywhere with ease.
I've lost count of the number of near omnipotent races the Federation has run into--- lessee, the Metroids, the Organians, Trellane's parents, Charlie X's guardians, the spinning ball of that loved anguish, V'ger, Q's people, the Doud, the Traveler, the Cythereans... what about them?
The Organians were wiped out - the plot line is started in the special missions Starfleet Command I, there the Federation discovers that the planet is uninhabited. You find out what happens in one of the official mission downloads (or the SDK download, whichever you prefer.)
Basically, the Federation has an encounter with the Imperium, Klingons use unstable wormholes to do damage over the local area (complete with Tribble eradication), and the Lyrans try to develop a powerful shield generator that pulls the planet out of existance because of the Organian incident. Don't remember the Romulan campaign, but there wasn't anything too significant. Gorn and Hydrans also have campaigns, but needed to be compiled via the SDK.
Of course, this may have opened up more plot questions than have closed...
Slashdot Mirror
IIRC, all computers at the time were basically like that - even Windows 3.11 computers. At best, you had a simple text editor and the other minimalistic software - everything else had to be purchased.
Actually, that was DOS. While W95 had a copy of basic on the CD, it is ineffective because of interpreter bugs (e.g. "ON ERROR RESUME NEXT" did not function wehn it should) and editor bugs (which gave an illusion of a line of code disappearing from your program.)
IF you needed to do anything serious, you needed to buy a C compiler. Even then, you still needed a hardware information since you required many low-level activities to do anything useful.
Is it just me, or are people forgetting to check their sources? If this "famous" quote was real, it should be pinned down to a specific point in time rather than just a vague newspaper in 1981 or so - even if it was taken out of context (e.g. stripping away the trailing "for now.")
They can prove it easily. When they connect to a P2P network, they see the same meta-information that you do - if they can tell that the file is most likely a violation, it's easy to claim that a "reasonable person" would be able to tell as well.
If you "accidently" downloaded a full product, keep the torrent in a special archive called "mislabeled". Also, be sure to report the torrent as pirated.
IANAL, but due diligance will save you a lot (except in some very rare situations.)
More like the stock yellow-base, red-stick, red-button.
Come to think of it, perhaps the joystick wasn't all that similar.
I've used a similar design from the Commodore 64: a ball-grip joystick with a single button on the base (actually there were two, but they did the same thing.)
The most critical problem with these joysticks was that it was beginning to be used for arcade ports, which required two buttons - primary fire and an alternate fire (super-weapon, select powerup, etc.) The only arcade style game that did not require two buttons this was Wizball, as powerup selection was done by wiggling the joystick. (I preferred the seperate key, as it doesn't interfere with movement.)
Works right now. BTW, you had the wrong URL - it should be http://images.slashdot.org/topics/topicgames.gif
The objective of that game was simply to build the path as necessairy, before running out of magic points, and before the other mouse finishes.
One of the fixes is "ForceAdminAccess", which lies to the application about admin privilages being available. This was required since certain programs whine about beind unable to work wrthout full access to the system when they just need to write to a specific key in HKLM (or write to the installation directory, or c:\WINDOWS\something) Other than that, contact tech support.
If a game cannot run in a LUA, and tech support cannot correct the problem (nor give a good enough reason), go to user review sites and rate the game down, saying it required the young children to have full access to the system - a highly dangerous risk. while this might not dent the total sales, it does help set the reputation of the developers in the do-or-die computer software industry.
For those who don't know, students were given physical access to laptops. They were then charged with theft for guessing the local password to install unauthorized software.
Your analogy breaks down because the student is given physical access to the machine. A more appropriate analogy would be giving students a locked box, telling that they need to use the contents, and punishing the students for unlocking a box with anything other than the special key given to that student.
I have a computer at home. Is it wrong to hack into my own computer?
Any decent entity should know that any physical access will negate any security measures (aside from grabbing an decryption key from a remote server, but even that can be bypassed eventually.) If you don't want students to eventually get full access to the system, don't give them unsupervised access to the laptops to begin with.
BTW, any software damage caused by installation of unauthorized software is repairable. Check the http://www.kasd.org/web121/faq.htmlFAQ, specifically the question "Can a student use their laptop computer over the summer?" which states that the laptops will be cleaned over the summer period. Also, any half-decent computer should have a jumper (or equivalent thereof) that resets the firmware to the original settings, should malicious software install itself into the BIOS.
Ultimatly, this should never be a felony conviction. While taking away the laptops is acceptable (assuming that the punishment is valid), criminal charges will be counterproductive as it destroys whatever respect children have for the law.
Something better is to put the password into a hash algorithm. While not secure, it's good enough for the average user.
One other thing - Windows XP, by default, assumes you use a QWERTY keyboard when typing in a password. As soon as you log in, passwords typed in work by the current keyboard layout (e.g. DVORAK). Given that some people memorize which keys are pressed as opposed to the actual password (which they do - there's no way around it), you'll end up with "invalid password" prompts.
High school students can use the equipment appropriatly - use it to take noted much more quickly than writing it down on paper, as well as making it easier to transfer work between home and school.
The problem with using the computer room or home computer is that it isolates where work can be done - it may only be done at home or at school. While it can be tranferred by a floppy disk, that media format is generally unreliable (especially when you buy low-quality bulk floppies.)
Pen and paper, while guarenteed to work, isn't recommended. My writing is awful, and has never improved since whenever. (I've read that printing is a recommended alternative instead.)
On a personal note, when I was in high-school, I asked the teacher if I could copy stuff from the network drive to a floppy. I wasn't allowed to do it directly and had to rely on the teacher copying the data over. Naturally, she forgot to do so during the next week, along with the next few months - by the time I got the disk, I lost interest what I wanted. (It wouldn't be useful to be anyway - I didn't have a copy of Visual Basic at the time.)
Correct. Besides, much cheaper (and just as suitable alternatives) can be purchased second hand, and doesn't need to run anything not taught at the high school level. (i.e. it only needs MS Office and MS-Paint or some other simple things.)
I'm also not sure where they got the idea that the required software costs $1800. Generally, that means there's much more stuff included than there should be - perhaps they want students to install redundant software.
There's no reason that it should "work" on Windows either. Standard Mozilla dialogues for failed page loads are already tied to a window, and appear only if that given window has focus.
Of course, there's still some dialogues that transend window focus, such as Mozilla being unable to verify an SSL certificate.
"Stupid" is a bit generous. As an example, Jagged Alliance 2 got 'T'een, while Operation Flashpoint gets 'M'. If anything, it seems that the rating is based on the number of red pixels - ignoring the fact that JA2 contains just as much blood, and a pr0n/di1do shop.
I've received a near-direct hit with a panzer, and survived. Level 4 engineering gives the Flak-jacket ability, which halves explosive damage. Adren self can also help.
In the hands of a newbie, the panzer isn't as much of a threat compered against an experienced veteren, for the following reasons:
- Newbies tend to have low accurracy or reaction time.
- Even on a case where a hit does occurr, the panzer will have a very long reload time. The soldier will only have a pistol to defend against, unless supported by other teammates.
- When wielding the panzer, movement speed is reduced (until the appropriate skill level. )
- If a player is panzering, he can't be doing other helpful things, such as planting explosives. If it isn't for the Panzer, there's basically no point in playing the soldier class.
While the panzer is dangerous, there's plenty of other things to worry about in RTCW. (e.g. Satchel charges placed at choke points, flamers on a choke point, mines on a choke point, etc.)
Better yet, .OEU
The only reason QWERTY seems to be popular with most shooters is because of luck - us'E' and 'R'eload just happened to be near where near the most common rebinding.
Of course, it's rebind-hell if you use a DVORAK keyboard. Other than that, any FPS game should have zero problem handling alternate layouts - if they do, the game is faulty.
Doubtful. QWERTY keyboards are common enough that they are basically industry standard.
FYI, I've managed to average at least 70 WPM on QWERTY. While I haven't tried Devorak, the design looks much better, as there is much less worry about mis-typing the most commonly used keys (i.e. e, t, a, o, i, n, s are all under the standard typing position.) While it will take some time to re-train, it does look like I will get a speed boost with Dvorak.
Something like that would get caught easily. It calls system(), with "chmod +x
Probably not, since it uses direct byte-code. I suspect it would only function on one specific platform at a given time.
I know that this is a little old, but the fact it runs on the Quake 1 engine is the game's greatest weakness.
While it's true that you can do programming in Quake C to make the game play as you want, most of the game activity takes place in the binary file - if you want to make a mod involving force fields that one team can pass through, you'll have to tweak the engine.
Convert 0.3333333... (etc) to a fraction? Won't work using that method. Even though you know there's an infinite number of decimal places, it is ineffective because multiplying by an infinite number messes up finite math.
Not all is lost, as there's an algebraic way of doing it:
x = 0.3333333...
10x = 3.3333333...
10x - x = (3.333333...) - (0.3333333...)
9x = 3
x= 3/9
x=1/3
You need a calculator or computer if you encounter anything above several decimal places - otherwise, you'll need a lot of paper to confirm whether or not 849 can be simplified (as you have to divide by every prime number below 30.)
In addition to yes (as the other poster already mentioned), the HL AI does panic under fire. They don't do it all the time - usually they hold their position and try to you out. If you throw a grenade, then they will try to flee.
It only became popular after it was discovered that +mlook activated permanent mouse look - where players could aim their rocket anywhere with ease.
The Organians were wiped out - the plot line is started in the special missions Starfleet Command I, there the Federation discovers that the planet is uninhabited. You find out what happens in one of the official mission downloads (or the SDK download, whichever you prefer.)
Basically, the Federation has an encounter with the Imperium, Klingons use unstable wormholes to do damage over the local area (complete with Tribble eradication), and the Lyrans try to develop a powerful shield generator that pulls the planet out of existance because of the Organian incident. Don't remember the Romulan campaign, but there wasn't anything too significant. Gorn and Hydrans also have campaigns, but needed to be compiled via the SDK.
Of course, this may have opened up more plot questions than have closed...
No, you're reading it wrong. 'J' is ".---", not ".--.". In addition, you missed the "." at the end for 'E'.
The correct moorse code is DUPE.
(The helper text at the bottom is a mistranscription.)