*Gasp!!* Destructable, interactive environments! Its a revelation! A miracle of modern programming!! All hail HL2!!
..end sarcasm.. ..begin rant..
Listen here whippersnapper, destructable environments are nothing new. Why, I remember, way back in... musta been ninteen hunderd and nintety four - when I played a game called XCOM. It displayed soldiers and aliens in an isometric format, and just about everything could be blown up. In fact, that was probably the thing that most contributed to how much fun that game was... I take you back in time, for this conversation when I was viewing the game for the first time: "They've got the door to the barn covered." "OK, well, lets just make our own door, with this handy grenade..." "What?" "Yeah, kaboom, instant door."
..end rant.. ..sorta..
Look, I know destructible, interactive environments in 3D games are new. (And no, the horrid piece of software called "Tresspasser" cannot be called a game, and thus does not count.) And I applaud game developers to finally getting around to it. But it isn't something that hasn't been done before. Added complexity, yes. A new age of 3D gaming? Perhaps. But I'd say a bigger advance was present in the first Half Life game - an AI that put up a decent challenge and displayed some level of realistic enemy behavior in a FPS.
All that said, good luck to the HL2 guys. I really do hope they succeed. I look forward to the day when playing first person shooters involves some level of problem solving, rather than testing reflexes with the mouse and keyboard.
A lack of XBox emulators for the PC has more to do with difficult reverse engineering than it does with whether PCs have enough power to emulate it.
I think its safe to assume that a PC with a 3.4 Ghz CPU and a GeForce FX5950 Ultra card could emulate what is essentially a 733 Mhz PC with a Geforce 2, no problem.
The lack of a harddrive could be a showstopper I admit. My guess is that the xbox 2 will be able to connect to a network share on a PC running an MS OS though. Supposedly the xbox 2 will be a multimedia hub, one has to wonder how that would be possible without it being able to connect to a harddrive somewhere.
Regardless, emulation is a "nice to have", not a "must have", so you can count on it not being there and this whole argument is really a waste of time so I'm going to stop typing now.
The article is talking about the side rear view mirrors, not the center rear view mirror. To quote the article: " the system alerts the driver by lighting a warning icon on the outside rearview mirror for that side of the vehicle."
Why side rear view mirrors? Because where are you going to look if you think a car might be to the left or to the right? Side mirrors.
Actually, by the time the gamecube rolled out, people already expected a lack of backwards compatibility from the big N.
No, the outrage was when the N64 came out.. Nintendo had promised that it would be backwards compatible with Super NES games. It didn't happen, the claim was dropped late in development. Nintendo had also promised backwards compatibility for NES games in the Super NES. It didn't happen, the claim was dropped late in development.
Honestly, Nintendo was smart with the gamecube, to my knowledge, they never tried to claim it would be backwards compatible. Of course, the knowledge that they were pursuing an optical storage format (welcome to the 21st century nintendo) rather than a cartrige probably set the reality in a little earlier this time for them.
I'm not sure different processor and GPU really matter that much. Remember, the Xbox2 will be many times more powerful that the original due to newer generation hardware. You don't think that hardware would be powerful enough to emulate the xbox hardware? I do.
In short, is backwards compatibility nice? Yes. Would most gamers take it if they can get it? Yes. Is it a deal killer? No.
When a console company looks at the feature list and sees an item that's a "nice to have" rather than a "deal breaker", you can bet it won't get implemented. I think the PS2 might be the only console to ever have backwards compatibility. Honestly, its amazing that console even had it.
I wouldn't say the only way to start a successful business is to have a client from the outset, but it certainly is the easiest.
If you're going to build a product and then sell/market it, you better know beforehand that the market for it is there. Naturally, this requires money and time.
And how do you get input as to what changes your future customer wants? Without an existing client this is very, very difficult.
So I'd say, you either need to have a client from the outset, or have a very VERY clear idea of what a client would want before you even think of starting a company.
Two other types of companies that might be successful in the short term:
Vaporware corporation. - "Um, do you have any screenshots yet?" Software patent litigation company (Use any combination of the first three words). - "Why is your software company composed entirely of lawyers?"
Ug, how did all these rediculous rumors get modded up?
First off, for those of you hoping the battle scenes will be updated, with more vehicles etc - don't hold your breath.
Secondly, the removal of matte lines? You can forget about that one. They had the chance to do that in the last special editions, and they didn't. They chose to put in crappy extra scenes and wreck some of the current ones. Plan on those black lines with the Rancor monster still being there.
And you arent' going to be able to go back and forth between CG and "real" Yodas, R2D2s, Obi-Wans, Vaders, cantina aliens, taun-tauns, ewoks, Jabbas, etc, etc, etc - without disjointing the movie. I'm sorry, but even as good as CG is these days, it still isn't perfect. Maybe you recall, in the Matrix trilogy, Neos fight against the zillion Smiths? Yeah, take a look at Neos clothing during the fight, tell me if you think it looks realistic the whole time...
Here's what I'd like to see:
Release the original movies, on DVD, with no extra special crap whatsoever. No CG. Release them exactly as they played when they first came out.
Release them as they were, and leave them alone. If the old movies don't match the new, its George's fault. He knew when he created "prequels" that he needed to maintain continuity with his other movies. "Fixing" the old movies to match the new ones is wrong.
I'm convinced that the more Lucas tries to "fix" his original triology, the worse it'll get.
And frankly the name doesn't matter. I'm sure if you took a survey you'd find that most people don't know who "Apollo" is. A lot of them will probably say something stupid like "Isn't that the skater from the last olympics?".
What matters is how the thing performs, and what missions are performed using it. We look back fondly on Apollo because humans landed on the moon in that project.
Which brings up my final point, which is that Apollo is the name of the entire project dedicated to landing men on the moon, where the CEV is the vehicle. Apples and oranges, my friend. The Apollo vehicles had similarly boring names. Well, Saturn 5 is pretty badass, but again, thats the rocket and not the crew module. Even todays rockets have cool names for the most part.
I'm sure the project name for landing men on Mars will have a similarly sexy name as "Apollo". Maybe they should name it "Aphrodite" - thats about as sexy as they come. But probably more fitting that they save that name for sending people to melt on Venus. No, the project should probably be named "Ares" - duh.
Somebody please mod the dumbfuck parent post down as offtopic, flamebait, or troll.
Now I'll go into my own offtopic rant and get modded down myself:
I guess this fool wasn't there, on the islands, when the Japanese dug in and fought to the last man. When the Japanese used pilots in their planes as guided bombs. Japan was, at the time, pschologically prepared to fight down to every last man, woman, and child.
Would they have surrendered more easily? Its easy to look back on it now, almost 50 years later, and say yes. But I think if you ask anyone who was alive during the time if they thought Japan would ever surrender, they'd say no.
Could we have bombed them into submission using conventional weapons? Sure, but we'd have been bombing them for years - and the death toll would probably have been much higher.
No, what we needed was a pschological edge. Something that said: "If you don't give up now, there won't be anything left to defend." That technology was the atomic bomb. Was it horrible? Yes. Could we have done it another way? With enough determination, yes. Would doing it another way have resulted in less casualties? No. So do I still defend its use? Yes.
You forgot the budweiser ad where a man and a woman have clearly just finished their first date, and stand around ackwardly at her door. She then kisses him hard on the mouth, forcing him on to the hood of his car and then stands up and says something like "bye". I guaruntee if the roles were reversed the feminist outcry could be heard from here to Antarctica.
And I read the original article in the magazine when I got it. Contrary to the rebutters opinion, I did't see the article as "muckraking". The author may not be as well informed as he should be. Pointing out that a simple firewall is enabled by default and that changing system settings is more difficult in Mac OS X would have gone a long way toward mitigating this kind of response, but certainly would not have eliminated it. I get the feeling that merely suggesting that Mac OS X feels less pain from viruses, trojans, and other nasties in part because it has a smaller market share would result in this sort of response regardless of how well informed the journalist was about Macs.
I think the author of the original commentary article, Lance Ulanoff, is at least partially correct. I've seen other posts in this article thread stating that "security through obscurity doesn't work". Actually, it does, until the vulnerability is discovered. Does Mac OS X have undiscovered vulnerablities? I can almost assure you it does. No programmer, no matter how intelligent, can ever come up with every sneaky, crafty, or just odd tactic that crackers will try.
So is Mac OS X less of a target because of smaller market share? Yes. Is Mac OS X more secure in a default configuration that Windows XP? Yes.
Its really pretty simple when you look at it objectively. I maintain that if you have a normal doofus user setting up an OS, you have an unsecure OS, Windows or not.
I agree with you. Parents have to monitor their own children, it shouldn't be up to the state. And I also agree that there shouldn't have to be legislation in order to prevent minors from buying these sorts of games, that the industry should be able to police itself. But at least from what I've seen so far, this industry doesn't police itself, and isn't showing any signs that it will. Does that mean that legislation is in order? I'm just saying I wouldn't be opposed to there being fines for this sort of industry behavior, if thats what it takes.
I'd like to thank you for your calm, collected, and concise reply. Rare to see in any forum on any topic, in my experience.
Books do not allow a person to participate in killing on a first person basis. Readers do not cause the killing or maiming of someone in a book, they are simply along for the ride. Even books which teach killing are by their very nature passive, the reader must do this themselves at some point. Video games are an active form of entertainment - they are as close as you can get to killing someone without actually doing so.
The military uses simulators to "teach" people how to drive tanks and fly planes. People are constantly learning, consiously or not.
As for stopping their kids, how is a parent to stop a child from buying M rated video games when they can just head to the nearest mall and have the EB guy not only sell it to them, but tell them how great it is? "Oh yeah, that one has location specific damage, so you can shoot peoples arms off and stuff, its awesome."
But I'm just a crazy first amendment hater. Asking for insane things like not selling maiming simulators to 10 year olds. I'm off my damn rocker, mod me down!!
So, preventing minors from severing limbs in video games is the road to hell, eh?
<dripping sarcasm> Yeah, I think young children practicing exploding peoples heads is what they really need. We clearly need MORE death and dismemberment to prevent our children from becoming violent criminals. They need to learn that humping hookers will give you more health, not AIDs or other STDs! And young children should know that killing people in cruel manners is fun. That way when they grow up and go out into the real world, they'll be less likely to commit acts of violence against others when they are under stress. </sarcasm>
Look, I don't like government regulation - I want less government, not more. But I don't think what this guy was saying is out of line. Don't sell violently rated games (M) to young children. Fines and jail time for repeat offenders. Place the violent games in a separate location from games for younger children.
<more sarcasm> Well there go our rights! We'll never get the right to have Bloody Carcases displayed next to Count 123 again! Oh, woe to us. What a sad day this is. </sarcasm>
Look, I love the first amendment and I'll defend the right of people to say what they want even if I don't like it, but minors do not have the same rights as adults. We forbid them to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and view pornographic material. Frankly, I don't see how this is any different, and I don't have a problem with it.
This guy isn't trying to restrict the rights of adults, he's merely trying to protect minors from dangerous material. I think we can all agree that virtual violent killing is not helpful for young minds. Maybe it does harm, maybe it doesn't - the jury is still out on that. But I will say this: Arguing that extremely violent video games are good for kids is like arguing that porn teaches teenagers how to respect women. Go ahead, say the phrase "Porn teaches young men to respect women" to the next woman you see and find out what response you get.
Re:Password management
on
Real Security?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Here's my take: The more often your force users to change passwords, the simpler the passwords will get. And if you force them to create tough new passwords frequently, they'll write them down or otherwise store them insecurly. When users store passwords insecurly, it increases the likeliness that the password will become available to someone you don't want it to, without them having to resort to technical techniques, such as keyloggers or brute force cracking.
Technical techniques are detectable. They may be difficult to detect, but they are detectable. The "bad guys" seeing a password on a desk (or trash or whatever) is not detectable, and now you've now opened yourself up to the nastiest password leak of all. Even most stupid passwords are going to take more than 10 attempts to crack, unless it happens to be "password" which almost every cracker guesses first. If you have a worthwhile system to defend, you'll be aware of attempts to brute force your system, and you can take action.
Now, I know what your thinking: "What if they brute force against my password file/database?". Listen, if someone has access to your password file or database, you are screwed, whether you force your users to change their passwords or not.
Normal users create dumb passwords. What really needs to be done, in my opinion, is when you hire someone, they should go through a secure password training course. They should be given some techniques for creating a tough password that they can remember, and then informed that they should never, ever give out their password to anyone else, or write it down, or store it on a computer.
There is one final piece to the puzzle. You need to run a cracking program against your own password list once every few months. (Or more often for a system where security is paramount) Be sure that the cracking machine is not on a network! Move the file or database to the machine via sneakernet. Run the cracker on the list, and anyone it comes up with quickly should be told to come up with a new password. Frequent offenders should be required to attend the secure password training course again.
I think this would result in the most secure system possible. Sure, people are still going to write down passwords. They'll still have dumb passwords. They'll still give out their passwords to other people. But, you'll have limited how often that happens, and at least the majority of your users will have somewhat difficult passwords. Those people who have very difficult passwords can keep them, making for a secure system where users are more happy.
Not just customers, others in the company themselves!
I work for a large corporation, and one time I got a call out of the blue. It was for a developer who'd long since left the company, who's phone number I'd inherited. It took me 5 minutes to find that out. I literally had to have the individual spell out the name to understand it.
It took me 15 minutes to find out the reason for the call was a SQL server job that was failing, and to tell them that they needed to contact someone else. I pity the person that inherited support calls for that job.
I estimate the call would have taken less than a minute had it been from someone I could understand.
These are the sort of things that companies aren't considering when they outsource.
Electrolysis is powered by (duh) electricity. Basically, running power through two oppositely charged rods in water cases hydrogen to separate from oxygen. Thats really a dumbed down explaination, but it'll suffice and you already knew that anyway.
Your point is "where does the electricity come from, and isn't that pollution the same or worse anyway?"
There are non-polluting sources of electricity. Water (dams), wind, and (coming soon) wave power don't produce much power, but they're very clean.
And don't forget about nuclear power. Yes, it does produce nasty radioactive substances as a by-product, however, these substances do not pollute the air.
Not to mention that coal burning plants with strict environmental controls are far less polluting that the millions of equivalent cars, each burning gasoline themselves.
So yes, fuel cells in cars is a more environmentally sound means of propulsion. Some journalists may be dumb, but in this case they're still correct.
About 6 months ago, I bought a new HD. I decided to split it into separate partitions, one for OS, a big one for Data. I cleaned off my old HD so that I could put images on it.
Once I got XP running and set up the way I liked it, I made an image. I installed a firewall and some other necessary programs, made another image. Added all the accessory programs I like, made an image.
Then I tried to install a major IDE. The installation hosed up at 99%. After a reboot, the machine was F'd up big time. I restored the image I had made just before starting the installation. Then I tried installing the IDE again and it worked perfectly. My machine has been running great ever since, and the IDE works just fine. Needless to say I also have an image with the IDE installed:)
TrueImage certainly saved me loads of time reinstalling my OS, configuring it, and installing all the programs I like. Not only that, but since I can cut an image of the OS while running it, making new images is a piece of cake. Booting from a disk to make an image now feels practically prehistoric. But the greatest thing about it is that its cheap, unlike certain other image software.
So I vote for Acronis.
It may not be an ideal corporate solution - I think Ghost is probably still the best for that. Its got automation, networking, pretty much everything you could want in image software. Except, perhaps, ease of use and low cost.
For personal use though, I'd argue Acronis is the way to go for MS OS.
Personal Soapbox section: When you set up a new machine, make a separate partition for data and OS! It'll save you a lot of time because making OS images is fast and easy, and you can restore your OS without having to worry about losing data. The data partition can be backed up via more conventional means. Copy important data to CD or tape, or whatever other backup solution you want to pursue - but image your OS. I'd never set up a new machine any other way.
How does a player find someone who is offering a quest?
Sure, you could offer some sort of search functionality, but how does that fit into a game of the fantasy genre? All of a sudden we have computers that can search out available quests? It completely contradicts with the feel of the game. Creating a method that feels authentic to the game is going to be damn hard, believe me.
What prevents a player from offering a quest, and upon completion, even if they are required to give the reward, simply killing the other player to get their reward back?
You sort of answered this one, with the idea that the questor would receive their reward from a "holding area" within the game, and would be magically given to them the instant they completed the quest. But does this make sense? If I'm told to fetch a guys lost horse and he'll give me 500 quizaloots, shouldn't I have to bring the horse back to him and then get the reward from him personally? If I find the horse, is it suddenly magically transported to the owner? And if I have to bring the horse to the owner, again, why doesn't he simply kill me? Again, this issue isn't as easy as it first appears.
What impetus is there for players to offer quests? Why would the player not accomplish whatever task they want done themselves?
You answered this one as well, and your answer is the easiest solution. But again, it doesn't really fit with an "authentic" universe. Does a reward make sense for offering quests? Whos giving out the reward? The game? Certainly this doesn't make the game seem any more real. It prevents us from suspending our disbelief.
The only thing I can think of that would help developers of these games a lot would be a karma system. Offering quests would increase karma, killing players who complete them would drop the karma (a lot). This would help solve questions 2+3, but question 1 is going to require a lot of thought for the developer who pursues player created quests, especially in a traditional fantasy type universe.
I have to agree with you that pricing is not the main problem, though I dislike the current pricing structure of MMORPGs enough that I refuse to play them.
I think you finally hit on the right idea in the second to last sentence. The only feasible answer I can think of is player created quests.
Player created quests would have to have specific conditions in order to fulfill them, with specific reward(s) specified beforehand, and would have to be managed through the game itself. Thus both parties could be sure that the quest was actually fulfilled, and other players who accepted the same quest could be notified that someone had already completed it.
Obviously, rewards for these quests would have to come from the player who commissioned the quest, rather than the game itself.
I believe the next generation of MMORPGs will include this functionality in some manner. Admittedly, even player created quests will only hold players a little longer, and there are a lot of issues with them to be surmounted:
How does a player find someone who is offering a quest?
What prevents a player from offering a quest, and upon completion, even if they are required to give the reward, simply killing the other player to get their reward back?
What impetus is there for players to offer quests? Why would the player not accomplish whatever task they want done themselves?
These, and a lot of other questions need to be answered - but I suspect MMORPG developers will start to come up with at least workable solutions for them. When they do, MMORPGs will get a lot more interesting, but I'll still refuse to play them under the current price gouging... I mean structure.
Slashdot Mirror
*Gasp!!* Destructable, interactive environments! Its a revelation! A miracle of modern programming!! All hail HL2!!
..end sarcasm..
..begin rant..
..end rant..
..sorta..
Listen here whippersnapper, destructable environments are nothing new. Why, I remember, way back in... musta been ninteen hunderd and nintety four - when I played a game called XCOM. It displayed soldiers and aliens in an isometric format, and just about everything could be blown up. In fact, that was probably the thing that most contributed to how much fun that game was...
I take you back in time, for this conversation when I was viewing the game for the first time:
"They've got the door to the barn covered."
"OK, well, lets just make our own door, with this handy grenade..."
"What?"
"Yeah, kaboom, instant door."
Look, I know destructible, interactive environments in 3D games are new. (And no, the horrid piece of software called "Tresspasser" cannot be called a game, and thus does not count.) And I applaud game developers to finally getting around to it. But it isn't something that hasn't been done before. Added complexity, yes. A new age of 3D gaming? Perhaps. But I'd say a bigger advance was present in the first Half Life game - an AI that put up a decent challenge and displayed some level of realistic enemy behavior in a FPS.
All that said, good luck to the HL2 guys. I really do hope they succeed. I look forward to the day when playing first person shooters involves some level of problem solving, rather than testing reflexes with the mouse and keyboard.
A lack of XBox emulators for the PC has more to do with difficult reverse engineering than it does with whether PCs have enough power to emulate it.
I think its safe to assume that a PC with a 3.4 Ghz CPU and a GeForce FX5950 Ultra card could emulate what is essentially a 733 Mhz PC with a Geforce 2, no problem.
The lack of a harddrive could be a showstopper I admit. My guess is that the xbox 2 will be able to connect to a network share on a PC running an MS OS though. Supposedly the xbox 2 will be a multimedia hub, one has to wonder how that would be possible without it being able to connect to a harddrive somewhere.
Regardless, emulation is a "nice to have", not a "must have", so you can count on it not being there and this whole argument is really a waste of time so I'm going to stop typing now.
The article is talking about the side rear view mirrors, not the center rear view mirror. To quote the article: " the system alerts the driver by lighting a warning icon on the outside rearview mirror for that side of the vehicle."
Why side rear view mirrors? Because where are you going to look if you think a car might be to the left or to the right? Side mirrors.
Actually, by the time the gamecube rolled out, people already expected a lack of backwards compatibility from the big N.
No, the outrage was when the N64 came out.. Nintendo had promised that it would be backwards compatible with Super NES games. It didn't happen, the claim was dropped late in development.
Nintendo had also promised backwards compatibility for NES games in the Super NES. It didn't happen, the claim was dropped late in development.
Honestly, Nintendo was smart with the gamecube, to my knowledge, they never tried to claim it would be backwards compatible. Of course, the knowledge that they were pursuing an optical storage format (welcome to the 21st century nintendo) rather than a cartrige probably set the reality in a little earlier this time for them.
I'm not sure different processor and GPU really matter that much. Remember, the Xbox2 will be many times more powerful that the original due to newer generation hardware. You don't think that hardware would be powerful enough to emulate the xbox hardware? I do.
In short, is backwards compatibility nice? Yes. Would most gamers take it if they can get it? Yes. Is it a deal killer? No.
When a console company looks at the feature list and sees an item that's a "nice to have" rather than a "deal breaker", you can bet it won't get implemented. I think the PS2 might be the only console to ever have backwards compatibility. Honestly, its amazing that console even had it.
(Especially with software, where cramming maximal items into the preferences panel seems to be an industry sport.)
Then I declare Winamp the winner.
That is all.
I wouldn't say the only way to start a successful business is to have a client from the outset, but it certainly is the easiest.
If you're going to build a product and then sell/market it, you better know beforehand that the market for it is there. Naturally, this requires money and time.
And how do you get input as to what changes your future customer wants? Without an existing client this is very, very difficult.
So I'd say, you either need to have a client from the outset, or have a very VERY clear idea of what a client would want before you even think of starting a company.
Two other types of companies that might be successful in the short term:
Vaporware corporation.
- "Um, do you have any screenshots yet?"
Software patent litigation company (Use any combination of the first three words).
- "Why is your software company composed entirely of lawyers?"
Hard to vote with your wallet when there is nothing to buy.
They meant to say, white American female. You'd get those things, plus NASA would make a killing on the "Nude on Mars" calendar.
Ug, how did all these rediculous rumors get modded up?
First off, for those of you hoping the battle scenes will be updated, with more vehicles etc - don't hold your breath.
Secondly, the removal of matte lines? You can forget about that one. They had the chance to do that in the last special editions, and they didn't. They chose to put in crappy extra scenes and wreck some of the current ones. Plan on those black lines with the Rancor monster still being there.
And you arent' going to be able to go back and forth between CG and "real" Yodas, R2D2s, Obi-Wans, Vaders, cantina aliens, taun-tauns, ewoks, Jabbas, etc, etc, etc - without disjointing the movie. I'm sorry, but even as good as CG is these days, it still isn't perfect. Maybe you recall, in the Matrix trilogy, Neos fight against the zillion Smiths? Yeah, take a look at Neos clothing during the fight, tell me if you think it looks realistic the whole time...
Here's what I'd like to see:
Release the original movies, on DVD, with no extra special crap whatsoever. No CG. Release them exactly as they played when they first came out.
Release them as they were, and leave them alone. If the old movies don't match the new, its George's fault. He knew when he created "prequels" that he needed to maintain continuity with his other movies. "Fixing" the old movies to match the new ones is wrong.
I'm convinced that the more Lucas tries to "fix" his original triology, the worse it'll get.
Its prounounced:
See Eee Vee
And frankly the name doesn't matter. I'm sure if you took a survey you'd find that most people don't know who "Apollo" is. A lot of them will probably say something stupid like "Isn't that the skater from the last olympics?".
What matters is how the thing performs, and what missions are performed using it. We look back fondly on Apollo because humans landed on the moon in that project.
Which brings up my final point, which is that Apollo is the name of the entire project dedicated to landing men on the moon, where the CEV is the vehicle. Apples and oranges, my friend. The Apollo vehicles had similarly boring names. Well, Saturn 5 is pretty badass, but again, thats the rocket and not the crew module. Even todays rockets have cool names for the most part.
I'm sure the project name for landing men on Mars will have a similarly sexy name as "Apollo". Maybe they should name it "Aphrodite" - thats about as sexy as they come. But probably more fitting that they save that name for sending people to melt on Venus. No, the project should probably be named "Ares" - duh.
Somebody please mod the dumbfuck parent post down as offtopic, flamebait, or troll.
Now I'll go into my own offtopic rant and get modded down myself:
I guess this fool wasn't there, on the islands, when the Japanese dug in and fought to the last man. When the Japanese used pilots in their planes as guided bombs. Japan was, at the time, pschologically prepared to fight down to every last man, woman, and child.
Would they have surrendered more easily? Its easy to look back on it now, almost 50 years later, and say yes. But I think if you ask anyone who was alive during the time if they thought Japan would ever surrender, they'd say no.
Could we have bombed them into submission using conventional weapons? Sure, but we'd have been bombing them for years - and the death toll would probably have been much higher.
No, what we needed was a pschological edge. Something that said: "If you don't give up now, there won't be anything left to defend." That technology was the atomic bomb. Was it horrible? Yes. Could we have done it another way? With enough determination, yes. Would doing it another way have resulted in less casualties? No. So do I still defend its use? Yes.
Thank you.
You forgot the budweiser ad where a man and a woman have clearly just finished their first date, and stand around ackwardly at her door. She then kisses him hard on the mouth, forcing him on to the hood of his car and then stands up and says something like "bye". I guaruntee if the roles were reversed the feminist outcry could be heard from here to Antarctica.
And I read the original article in the magazine when I got it. Contrary to the rebutters opinion, I did't see the article as "muckraking". The author may not be as well informed as he should be. Pointing out that a simple firewall is enabled by default and that changing system settings is more difficult in Mac OS X would have gone a long way toward mitigating this kind of response, but certainly would not have eliminated it. I get the feeling that merely suggesting that Mac OS X feels less pain from viruses, trojans, and other nasties in part because it has a smaller market share would result in this sort of response regardless of how well informed the journalist was about Macs.
I think the author of the original commentary article, Lance Ulanoff, is at least partially correct. I've seen other posts in this article thread stating that "security through obscurity doesn't work". Actually, it does, until the vulnerability is discovered. Does Mac OS X have undiscovered vulnerablities? I can almost assure you it does. No programmer, no matter how intelligent, can ever come up with every sneaky, crafty, or just odd tactic that crackers will try.
So is Mac OS X less of a target because of smaller market share? Yes.
Is Mac OS X more secure in a default configuration that Windows XP? Yes.
Its really pretty simple when you look at it objectively. I maintain that if you have a normal doofus user setting up an OS, you have an unsecure OS, Windows or not.
I've been looking at buying this card for months - now you've ensured it'll never be in stock. Aaaarrrrggg...
I agree with you. Parents have to monitor their own children, it shouldn't be up to the state. And I also agree that there shouldn't have to be legislation in order to prevent minors from buying these sorts of games, that the industry should be able to police itself. But at least from what I've seen so far, this industry doesn't police itself, and isn't showing any signs that it will. Does that mean that legislation is in order? I'm just saying I wouldn't be opposed to there being fines for this sort of industry behavior, if thats what it takes.
I'd like to thank you for your calm, collected, and concise reply. Rare to see in any forum on any topic, in my experience.
Ok, I know its slightly offtopic...
Its true, the towers of Hanoi puzzle is actually present in the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic game. Its the 4 disk version.
Always fun to see classic puzzles show up in computer games under a different guise.
Books do not allow a person to participate in killing on a first person basis. Readers do not cause the killing or maiming of someone in a book, they are simply along for the ride. Even books which teach killing are by their very nature passive, the reader must do this themselves at some point. Video games are an active form of entertainment - they are as close as you can get to killing someone without actually doing so.
The military uses simulators to "teach" people how to drive tanks and fly planes. People are constantly learning, consiously or not.
As for stopping their kids, how is a parent to stop a child from buying M rated video games when they can just head to the nearest mall and have the EB guy not only sell it to them, but tell them how great it is? "Oh yeah, that one has location specific damage, so you can shoot peoples arms off and stuff, its awesome."
But I'm just a crazy first amendment hater. Asking for insane things like not selling maiming simulators to 10 year olds. I'm off my damn rocker, mod me down!!
So, preventing minors from severing limbs in video games is the road to hell, eh?
<dripping sarcasm>
Yeah, I think young children practicing exploding peoples heads is what they really need. We clearly need MORE death and dismemberment to prevent our children from becoming violent criminals. They need to learn that humping hookers will give you more health, not AIDs or other STDs! And young children should know that killing people in cruel manners is fun. That way when they grow up and go out into the real world, they'll be less likely to commit acts of violence against others when they are under stress.
</sarcasm>
Look, I don't like government regulation - I want less government, not more. But I don't think what this guy was saying is out of line. Don't sell violently rated games (M) to young children. Fines and jail time for repeat offenders. Place the violent games in a separate location from games for younger children.
<more sarcasm>
Well there go our rights! We'll never get the right to have Bloody Carcases displayed next to Count 123 again! Oh, woe to us. What a sad day this is.
</sarcasm>
Look, I love the first amendment and I'll defend the right of people to say what they want even if I don't like it, but minors do not have the same rights as adults. We forbid them to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, and view pornographic material. Frankly, I don't see how this is any different, and I don't have a problem with it.
This guy isn't trying to restrict the rights of adults, he's merely trying to protect minors from dangerous material. I think we can all agree that virtual violent killing is not helpful for young minds. Maybe it does harm, maybe it doesn't - the jury is still out on that. But I will say this: Arguing that extremely violent video games are good for kids is like arguing that porn teaches teenagers how to respect women. Go ahead, say the phrase "Porn teaches young men to respect women" to the next woman you see and find out what response you get.
Here's my take: The more often your force users to change passwords, the simpler the passwords will get. And if you force them to create tough new passwords frequently, they'll write them down or otherwise store them insecurly. When users store passwords insecurly, it increases the likeliness that the password will become available to someone you don't want it to, without them having to resort to technical techniques, such as keyloggers or brute force cracking.
Technical techniques are detectable. They may be difficult to detect, but they are detectable. The "bad guys" seeing a password on a desk (or trash or whatever) is not detectable, and now you've now opened yourself up to the nastiest password leak of all. Even most stupid passwords are going to take more than 10 attempts to crack, unless it happens to be "password" which almost every cracker guesses first. If you have a worthwhile system to defend, you'll be aware of attempts to brute force your system, and you can take action.
Now, I know what your thinking: "What if they brute force against my password file/database?". Listen, if someone has access to your password file or database, you are screwed, whether you force your users to change their passwords or not.
Normal users create dumb passwords. What really needs to be done, in my opinion, is when you hire someone, they should go through a secure password training course. They should be given some techniques for creating a tough password that they can remember, and then informed that they should never, ever give out their password to anyone else, or write it down, or store it on a computer.
There is one final piece to the puzzle. You need to run a cracking program against your own password list once every few months. (Or more often for a system where security is paramount) Be sure that the cracking machine is not on a network! Move the file or database to the machine via sneakernet. Run the cracker on the list, and anyone it comes up with quickly should be told to come up with a new password. Frequent offenders should be required to attend the secure password training course again.
I think this would result in the most secure system possible. Sure, people are still going to write down passwords. They'll still have dumb passwords. They'll still give out their passwords to other people. But, you'll have limited how often that happens, and at least the majority of your users will have somewhat difficult passwords. Those people who have very difficult passwords can keep them, making for a secure system where users are more happy.
Not just customers, others in the company themselves!
I work for a large corporation, and one time I got a call out of the blue. It was for a developer who'd long since left the company, who's phone number I'd inherited. It took me 5 minutes to find that out. I literally had to have the individual spell out the name to understand it.
It took me 15 minutes to find out the reason for the call was a SQL server job that was failing, and to tell them that they needed to contact someone else. I pity the person that inherited support calls for that job.
I estimate the call would have taken less than a minute had it been from someone I could understand.
These are the sort of things that companies aren't considering when they outsource.
Electrolysis is powered by (duh) electricity. Basically, running power through two oppositely charged rods in water cases hydrogen to separate from oxygen. Thats really a dumbed down explaination, but it'll suffice and you already knew that anyway.
Your point is "where does the electricity come from, and isn't that pollution the same or worse anyway?"
There are non-polluting sources of electricity. Water (dams), wind, and (coming soon) wave power don't produce much power, but they're very clean.
And don't forget about nuclear power. Yes, it does produce nasty radioactive substances as a by-product, however, these substances do not pollute the air.
Not to mention that coal burning plants with strict environmental controls are far less polluting that the millions of equivalent cars, each burning gasoline themselves.
So yes, fuel cells in cars is a more environmentally sound means of propulsion. Some journalists may be dumb, but in this case they're still correct.
About 6 months ago, I bought a new HD. I decided to split it into separate partitions, one for OS, a big one for Data. I cleaned off my old HD so that I could put images on it.
:)
Once I got XP running and set up the way I liked it, I made an image. I installed a firewall and some other necessary programs, made another image. Added all the accessory programs I like, made an image.
Then I tried to install a major IDE. The installation hosed up at 99%. After a reboot, the machine was F'd up big time. I restored the image I had made just before starting the installation. Then I tried installing the IDE again and it worked perfectly. My machine has been running great ever since, and the IDE works just fine. Needless to say I also have an image with the IDE installed
TrueImage certainly saved me loads of time reinstalling my OS, configuring it, and installing all the programs I like. Not only that, but since I can cut an image of the OS while running it, making new images is a piece of cake. Booting from a disk to make an image now feels practically prehistoric. But the greatest thing about it is that its cheap, unlike certain other image software.
So I vote for Acronis.
It may not be an ideal corporate solution - I think Ghost is probably still the best for that. Its got automation, networking, pretty much everything you could want in image software. Except, perhaps, ease of use and low cost.
For personal use though, I'd argue Acronis is the way to go for MS OS.
Personal Soapbox section:
When you set up a new machine, make a separate partition for data and OS! It'll save you a lot of time because making OS images is fast and easy, and you can restore your OS without having to worry about losing data. The data partition can be backed up via more conventional means. Copy important data to CD or tape, or whatever other backup solution you want to pursue - but image your OS. I'd never set up a new machine any other way.
Clearly you aren't thinking like a programmer :)
How does a player find someone who is offering a quest?
Sure, you could offer some sort of search functionality, but how does that fit into a game of the fantasy genre? All of a sudden we have computers that can search out available quests? It completely contradicts with the feel of the game. Creating a method that feels authentic to the game is going to be damn hard, believe me.
What prevents a player from offering a quest, and upon completion, even if they are required to give the reward, simply killing the other player to get their reward back?
You sort of answered this one, with the idea that the questor would receive their reward from a "holding area" within the game, and would be magically given to them the instant they completed the quest. But does this make sense? If I'm told to fetch a guys lost horse and he'll give me 500 quizaloots, shouldn't I have to bring the horse back to him and then get the reward from him personally? If I find the horse, is it suddenly magically transported to the owner? And if I have to bring the horse to the owner, again, why doesn't he simply kill me? Again, this issue isn't as easy as it first appears.
What impetus is there for players to offer quests? Why would the player not accomplish whatever task they want done themselves?
You answered this one as well, and your answer is the easiest solution. But again, it doesn't really fit with an "authentic" universe. Does a reward make sense for offering quests? Whos giving out the reward? The game? Certainly this doesn't make the game seem any more real. It prevents us from suspending our disbelief.
The only thing I can think of that would help developers of these games a lot would be a karma system. Offering quests would increase karma, killing players who complete them would drop the karma (a lot). This would help solve questions 2+3, but question 1 is going to require a lot of thought for the developer who pursues player created quests, especially in a traditional fantasy type universe.
This can be true, but international relations is not a zero-sum game. What goes around comes around.
:p
And it will come around...
Not while the country with the highest GNP keeps paying for the best military in the world it won't.
My country can kick your countrys ass!
Go ahead and mod me down frenchies! I'm going down in a blaze of karma!!
I have to agree with you that pricing is not the main problem, though I dislike the current pricing structure of MMORPGs enough that I refuse to play them.
I think you finally hit on the right idea in the second to last sentence. The only feasible answer I can think of is player created quests.
Player created quests would have to have specific conditions in order to fulfill them, with specific reward(s) specified beforehand, and would have to be managed through the game itself. Thus both parties could be sure that the quest was actually fulfilled, and other players who accepted the same quest could be notified that someone had already completed it.
Obviously, rewards for these quests would have to come from the player who commissioned the quest, rather than the game itself.
I believe the next generation of MMORPGs will include this functionality in some manner. Admittedly, even player created quests will only hold players a little longer, and there are a lot of issues with them to be surmounted:
How does a player find someone who is offering a quest?
What prevents a player from offering a quest, and upon completion, even if they are required to give the reward, simply killing the other player to get their reward back?
What impetus is there for players to offer quests? Why would the player not accomplish whatever task they want done themselves?
These, and a lot of other questions need to be answered - but I suspect MMORPG developers will start to come up with at least workable solutions for them. When they do, MMORPGs will get a lot more interesting, but I'll still refuse to play them under the current price gouging... I mean structure.