Re:How does one dispute math as a universal concep
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The Golden Ratio
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· Score: 1
Maybe counting/(add/sub) arithmetics might be 'universal', but as soon as you enter multiplications and divisions it starts showing problems. How do you multiply 3 apples with 2 apples? Oh yeah, to be precise, it's multiply 3 apples with the number 2(or else you have apples ** 2). But what is "number 2"? It's not a real thing. Then simple comparisons with things is much less direct now. We *define* multiplication as a way of simplifying repetitive additions (3+3+3+3 = 4*3), but when looking at it this way, it's not obvious than another race would do the same thing, or even think about the concept, especially if they have a system of 'numerals' that aren't suited for this(ever did multiplication/division in Roman or Egyptian numerals?? Try it, you'll understand. With those numerals, no one would have thought about multiplication or divisions).
Then you need to understand the concept of 0, which is central to our mathematics. Even in the roman language, I believe the word 'nothing' was based on the word 'something', because no one was able to think about nothing back in those days(... are we now more apt to do it? Ask someone in philosophy =). Then the Arabs(well, Indians if you want to be exact IIRC) changed this.
Then, for more complicated mathematics, you start having lots and lots of Axioms. An Axiom isn't TRUE or FALSE, it's just an Axiom. If you agree with the Axiom, then that's great. However, no universal concepts precludes you from not agreeing to an Axiom, and if you do you change a LOT of things, but it doesn't mean it's wrong.
For example, X ** 0 = 1. Or a division by 0 is impossible. Why? No reason, those are axioms, so you have to agree that it's that if you want to do lots of classical mathematics. You can 'Argue' axioms, but it's just that, arguying, you cannot prove without a single doubt an Axiom(beause then it's not an Axiom =)
Another example, in logic this time, is P = NOT(NOT(P)) and NOT(NOT(P)) = P. However, you could disagree with the second one and agree with the first and then(in additions to new and/or modified Axioms) you'd end up with a NEW logical system, vastly different from the classical logic: it's called Intuitionist Logic and isn't less valid than Classical Logic, just different.
One thing proven in one of the system might not be provable, or even could be false, in the other system.
This just is a small glimpse of why Math is certainly not universal. Simple counting(add/sub) MIGHT be universal, but I do believe it stops there if it does start there(you'd have to enter philosophical debates over this).
Yeah, but if the LOTR was written in Finnish and Gandalf was named "Mikko Keskinarkaus" and Frodo "Arttu Leppaluoto"(Apologies to Finnish, I took some random names I found), you would have probably read the English translation/equivalent of the names, for example. In your case, LOTR is a bad analogy because the book translators DID translate the names to other languages(at least to french, Baggins=>Sacquet for example, I dunno about other languages).
It's not always black and white. I mean, if a movie has english, japanese and german characters with respective names, you won't change their names. However, since all characters have japanese names in this case, and most of it is strictly japanese, it can be argued that name should or shouldn't be 'americanized'.
I personally would like them to keep japanese names(I hate names translations), but I can see why they would change them to be more american. You must understand that it's not going to be a japanese movie dubbed in english. It's most likely going to be an american movie, made for an american audience.
Anyway, I'm not saying it's going to be good... =)
(Anime Fan 1): Damn this sucks. I mean, they gave them American names for god's sake! (Anime Fan 2): Yeah... but wasn't some of the character not even japanese? German, etc.? (Anime Fan 1): So? What's the point? (Anime Fan 2): Nothing, just my brain trying to think a bit, it's ok now. Anyway, I'll only watch the movie if the character's names stay in japanese. (Anime Fan 1): Yeah. And if they shoot it in japanese only... (Anime Fan 2): Subbed. Oh yeah, and count me out if they do not follow the serie to the letter, all XYZ episodes and fit them in 2 hours without anything missing or added. (Anime Fan 1): Oh! Oh! And it must be all anime, I mean, Live Action will just suck you know? Will lose all the exagerated proportions and all. (Anime Fan 2): Yeah... Hey, lets just go watch the serie again. (Anime Fan 1): Ok.
Stay Away from ZoneAlarm. I'm serious. It causes more headaches than anything, have some bugs when unistalling, is generally not very good at doing it's job and takes stupid decisions if you don't configure it correctly from the get-go. It also is the worst UI i've seen.
The best one, in my previous experience as an ISP tech support, is Tiny Personal Firewall. I'm not sure it has a free version(I think it has one, but it's an older build), but it's about 50$ IIRC for the full version. Sygate is also nice.
We're not 100% sure it was a development computer. If they installed lots of keyloggers and such on many computers, instead of taking the code right away, it's probable that there was no code on the compromised computer. So, with the keyloggers and remote apps they got access to the LAN or private network and then were able to find the dev computers from there.
Still, like I said, they should have known better, patching softwares, isolate the dev computers better, close/monitor the network at the first sign of 'weirdness with emails' and such.
It really comes back to: "Are you paranoid or not? Even if you aren't, it doesn't mean they aren't after you." All in all, better be safe than sorry,but I'd imagine 80% of the people are going to be sorry one day or another, as they'll feel it takes too much time to be safe most of the time.
He wasn't that stupid. The email used a old buffer overflow bug in the preview pane of Outlook to install the program, Gabe just had to click(not even open) the email for it to install the trojan.
However, it's mind-bending that their Outlook weren't patched(it's a very old exploit) and that he uses the preview pane in Outlook, on his work related computer. I know that they are backed by Microsoft, and thus probably gets all the MS toys, but they still forgot to patch them.
A shame. Still, a custom written trojan made against Valve to target their system and get the code/data of the game isn't something you see everyday. Either this kind of thing doesn't happen often, or it happens often but it's never detected(or acknowledged). Think industrial espionnage. Either way, it's not an easy to spot/cure, not antivirus/firewall can detect it effectivly if it's custom written against you. They probably probed Valve to check what exploits would or wouldn't work, so it's not as easy as to say: they should have patched, because the hacker would probably have tried another way and with a little determination, would have still compromised their systems enough to get some data.
Were you watching the same Firefly as I did? With 9 evolving characters, with betrayals, redemptions, tensions and disagrements between characters, high and lows in the morale of the crew, personalities that got reveled layers by layers. Incredibly witty humour(Whedon at its best, IMHO), engaging situations and a dark undertone. There no goody-goody characters, no good vs evil plot, just man vs itself, a step above Angel in that direction.
There was no carbon-copy characters, even despite their titles(captain, doctor, engineer, pilot, mercenary,etc.), they had each their own will, some characters were really mysterious(the Preacher), some changed a bit in the short span of time, some grew and matured. It was a character driven series, and not a plot, setting or situational series like Buffy or Angel or countless of shows on tv. It was about the crew and there future. There was no hero, not evil to get rid of, only themselves.
So, I really don't know what serie you watched. I agree the first 2 episodes were the best, but they were still great, Mal kicking the bounty hunter in the ship's engine was so unexpected at the end of the first episode, Whedon at its best I said.
Compared to drunk, angry and depressive people that beats their wives and drives when drunk? I dunno, but I'd like meeting a pothead better than a drunk in a dark alley, what about you?
Not that I'm for legalization of pot or anything, but the point is why should alchool be legal and not marijuana as a purely logical argument?
What I meant is that in Quantum Computing, with only the U and XOR gate, you can build all the needed gates, which mean that you only need 2 essential gates instead of about 5-6 in classical science(AND, NOT, OR, XOR, etc.). So quantum gates are a LOT simplier than classical gates... well, it still depends how you look at it =)
Just to educate the masses further, a quantum CNOT(controlled NOT)/XOR gate is not equivalent to a classical XOR gate. A CNOT gate includes a control bit, and retain the information of this bit at the end of the gate.
What is fun in Quantum Computing is that you do not need a lot of basic gates(AND, OR, XOR, NOT, etc.), you only need a small number of basic gates to make up the Universal gate.
Furthermore, ALL the elementary gates in QC are reversible!! Unlike classical gates, like XOR, the quantum CNOT, for example, is fully reversible
That's exactly what is happening with my dad. 15+ years of experience in databases, analysis and programming, but he's been unemployed for nearly 2 years. Every interview he goes to has about 5 to 20 people of about equal skills looking for the job. The IT industry is a harsh place right now.
Saying that it doesn't cost money to people because it's corporations that pays the bill is pretty stupid of your part.
First, fixing the page is probably the least important factor to consider.
Since it's kind of a 'contest', who defaces the most websites, how much can you bet that a large % of them will be medium to small sites? Most will also be e-commerce related sites, since their security is often compromised by badly written e-commerce software.
Now, take the normal MomAndPops.com, which sells apple pies. Client comes to the site expecting to buy apple pie and then find out that the site become a Hacker Advertisement site of some sort, or even worst, says that Apple Pie causes cancer. What will they say? "I'll come back later when the website is restored"? I don't think so. Most probably: "Shit, they stopped selling apple pie because it gives cancer!". It's sad, but a lot of people are gullible.
So, the real problem is loss of sales because of it, and/or traffic/readership, and/or reputation or anything the website is based on. The longer the site remains defaced, the more the website loses. This is the real killer, especially for small to medium websites/e-commerce, and most of these aren't run by evil megacorporations.
And your attitude of saying it's not that big of a deal because the corporation has enough money to fix it, or won't pay the guy in overtime, is not very wise. Sure, most of them exagerates the 'cost' of hackers and such, but it doesn't mean it isn't substancial, or that it just costs a simple fix of the website.
Frankly, I don't care much anyway, I'm posting here to give info and such, not to get Karma. At first I wanted to repost it to get it above the default filter, but after I reposted it I realized most mods should browse at -1 anyway, so it was pretty much stupid to repost it, my apologies.
I was just surprised to see that I wasn't logged in, hehe, stupid adaware that deletes cookies.
I don't think you understand Microsoft's tactic. They ALWAYS did the same thing:
1) Start with something free or an upgrade. 2) Incrementally and slowly add more and more restrictive claims. Auto-update, DRM, etc. 3) If the people start complaining too much, roll-back to previous claims, which isn't much better. 4) Wait for a while. 5) Go to 2.
This has been MS tactics for as long as I can remember. So, I don't think we should claim victory right now.
Like I said, there are lots of things to consider. For my part, I think meeting new people in game and making friends and allies is very fun and rewarding. When I played in the AC1 beta, I made lots of friends, teachers in magic, and such, it was more fun than any other game(at that time EQ and UO) just because of the community. Of course, that was in the beta...
The goal is really to strike a balance between a lot of factor and GIVE incentives and things to do for every character type. Loners would have a LOT opf things to do, just not going one-on-one against big bad monsters. He could be a really cool rangers, knowing the area by heart, but rarely fighting monster, and he's the guy you go to if you need to pass thru the forest unhindered or something.
With a 'reputation' system, where you can 'rate' people, either in-game or out-game, it would be cool. You get to a city, and look around and hear that Mister X is the best ranger there is around here and can easely get you from point A to point B unhindered... for a price =) There must be ways to also get XP other than just killing monsters.
Anyway... I'll leave that to the company that will really try to do a PD game. Done right, it migth be really cool. Done wrong it might be the worst MMORPG ever. It won't be easy.
Also, since the market is so cluttered, maybe a mass-market appeal isn't a good idea? Maybe that a niche, or smaller demographic would be better? Check AC2, a LOT of people are leaving in flocks... wouldn't it be better to have an average but stable group of people?
Why? I mean, there as SOOO much MMORPG that the market is pretty crowded and getting shares of it is starting to be pretty hard. Now, to take those shares, you can make a risky MMORPG with PD and maybe, just maybe, this will lead to a better game and maybe a bigger share than if you just had done a normal MMORPG with some 'new' features. Or it might fail. Risky business is, well, risky, but usually the reward is much greater, especially with stiff competition.
Now, in a PD game, you MUST remove all(or a vast majority of) 'unfair' deaths, like disconnects, lags, glitches, etc. There are many ways you can handle this, one, maybe not the best, would be to have 3 state: alive, incapacitated and dead. When you get under 0 HP, you are incapacitated., loosing some XP or even permanent HP or such. When in that state, monsters will switch to another target(thus not really killing you), and you cannot use any 'physical' skills and such, only mental ones, but with great difficulties. If you are in a group, the rest of the team will probably kill the monster and heal you. If you were alone(BAD idea in a PD game), what happens depends on the monster. Some might just let you rot there until someone finds you or you slowly heal. Or, he might bring you to his camp to eat, which gives rescuing opportunities, and ways for you to escape. Others, more powerful and dangerous monsters might just eat you whole or shred you to pieces. However, those would be rare, and you would know that beforehand, so it's very risky to try to bring down a dragon or such, especially alone. With good monster AI, you could have opportunities to retreat and bring the incapacitated characters with you, go back to town, heal up and try to go back better prepared.
Furthermore, even creatures that can really kill you, takes time to 'eat you', and are vulnerable when doing so, so it gives you even more chances of being rescued or even 'waking up'. The same holds true for PvP, as someone that incapacitate you have a CHOICE of leaving you there, rotting away, or really killing you. Permanently killing you would have deep consequences (alignment/humanity shift, killer flags, big bounties on you) and takes some time, and during this time, you would be vulnerable to attacks, and thus, it's a double edged sword, you could be permanently killed while trying to do the same to someone else. If you play Vampire the Masquerade, think of it as a kind of Torpor/Incapacitated mix and Final Death, with diablerie the only way to put someone in Final Death.
The possibilities are endless, and this is just a somewhat half-assed idea, but even that could bring a breath of fresh air to MMORPG.
That's why you must build a system to eliminate death by lags and glitches and such, what I call "unfair" death.
A bit deeper in the thread I've posted a link to a discussion on BluesNews about MEO and more specifically PD. Go check it out.
About things like "almost died" and such, which are really roleplay elements more than 'game mechanics', maybe adding something like the Karma system in Shadowrun(and not the/. one =). The more experience you gain, or the more heroic you are, or the more you follow a belief or alignment or something like that, the more Karma you gain. If one day you do good, the other you do evil, then good, then evil... you won't have much Karma.
Then, you could do 'miracles' like cheating death or doing an heroic feat by 'spending' Karma. In roleplay terms, it might be luck, divine intervention, etc.
I do believe that every difficulty and problems of PD can be solved by a clever idea like that, that's why I think we're ready for PD.
Exactly. In fact, a good PD system will nearly eliminate PKillers and that sort of people, and strengthen the community and interaction between players, much more than a conventional game could.
Like I said before, the idea is to solve the problems of PD(death by lags and glitches for example) and not just whine about them, but actually try to solve them. It's easy to say PD won't work because of X or Y, but it's harder and more rewarding, I think, to try to actually solve those problems. These new ideas might revitalize the MMORPG market, EVEN if the game fails, the ideas and new features because of PD might be really useful even for other games.
Check a discussion I'm having on BluesNews about PD, posts #11 and up.
That's why I think the perfect MMORPG in Middle Earth would be during the second age, or at least long before the LoTR. Times of conflicts between all races, epic wars, easterlings invasions, etc. It's a much better backdrop than the Ring quest and it's backdrop.
You are one of the many who do not think really about a PD system as a new beast completely. A PD game cannot just be EverQuest with PD added just like that. Everything, the whole game - economics, character advancement, features, etc. - everything must be built from the ground up to be Perma-Death. It's not as simple as adding PD or creating a PD server, as this will just fail and won't be useful at all. There is a real challenge of doing a PD game, and much reward I think.
However, for that, people must lose they preconceived ideas about permanent-death. I think I'll start the PDAA (PD Awareness Association). =)
I do believe that the market is now ready for a Permanent-Death MMORPG. I mean, the market is so full of similar games that a trully different and risky feature such as this might be what's needed to get a good share of the market.
Sure, making a PD game requires planning it from the start, making every features in a way that PD is possible for everyone to ENJOY. There are lot of problems to solve, and those are solvable on paper, and probably in practice. I just wish one publisher had the balls to really do it.
I wouldn't bet that Turbine will keep the PD, I'm sure they won't. This sucks. I just wish there were still risky companies around like Looking Glass were. Ion Storm isn't bad with Deus Ex and now the sequel, although they used Looking Glass' legacy to build Deus Ex on... While you can be successful and make great games without being overly original and risky(Blizzard), we still need risky ventures to revolutionize and advance toward new and greener pastures.
Oh well, don't mind me, the old skeptic gamer, but I'm sure the new middle earth will just be a 'standard' MMORPG with some new and unrisky features and the same old gameplay, with some tweak here and there, and more importantly, the Tolkien world! Wow, quite a change of setting...
Please, someone, bring Permanent Death and more risky idea to the world of MMORPG and then, maybe, maybe I'll actually play one.
Re:The only thing war has ever done is...
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Strike on Iraq
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· Score: 1
defeat Nazism, Communism, and [hopefully] Terrorism.
And destroyed and ravaged europe and countless of countries, atomic bombs obliterating cities full of innoncent civilians, destroyed(...) our all-time ennemies the vietcongs, let a lots of good soldiers dies, etc.
War is NEVER one sided. War itself is bad for everyone, every side, despite what a lot of people says. It's not because you aren't affected directly that it is 'good'. I hope the casulaties will be kept to a minimum and the war will end quickly. That's all we can hope for at this point.
While I am happy that Canada didn't sent any troops, I wish good luck to all the coalition soldiers out there.
No they don't. Gamers only know about what they are given to play with, unfortunately. Gamers can only find ways of IMPROVING actual games, they know nothing about game design. When I say gamers, it means 'most gamers', including the casual gamers and deer hunter fans.
Gamers play game A, a FPS for example. He'll find a list of hundreds of items to make game A better if he's a creative gamers that cares, otherwise he won't even think about it. However, these are just additions and changes to a specific game, or 'genre'. Gamers are blinded by the games they play, the games they are given, simple. Gamers usually aren't creative enough to think about a new and innovation game. That's why good game designers exists. If people like Sid Meiers and Miyamoto never existed, and only gamers would make games, the industry would be in a lot worst condition.
This is the problem with the industry. They can only make 'game A, which is game B with better X, Y and Z.' Good designers are able to come up with new a fresh ideas. Not revolutionary or anything, but fresh and new. However, since gamers are blinded by what they play, and only want to improve the games they play, these games either sells poorly, or are smash hits. No in-between. Gamers either give it a chance and see how great it is, or they don't bother and miss on an incredible game.
Great designers are few and far between. Anyone can think about how to make product A better, whether or not it's a game. However, to come with the idea of product A, it doesn't take a consumer/gamer, it takes a great mind(or many great minds).
Consumers, which gamers are, simply don't know what they want. They only know how to improve what they are given.
That's why focus groups and surveys and such are just the wrong way to do it. However, since making something people 'want' makes money, that's what they do, simple. That's why you get cars like the PT Cruisers that is just a piece of crap, but hey, it's popular because that's what drivers wants. Same with SUV. You could extend this problem to Democracy as a whole, but I won't even try to go near there, hehe.
Designers should make a game for THEMSELVES, not for the gamers.
Look at Blizzard. They make games for the gamers. Sure, they are very polished and incredibly detailed games, but they are just more of the same. However, since they make games for the gamers, they make tons of money. I love blizzard games, but you can't say they are innovative or anything, just more of the same, but MUCH better.
Look back at Looking Glass. They really created innovative games, for themselves and not the gamers at all. System Shock 1, Thief, Terra Nova, and some more. They created some new 'genres' themselves. The company failed, despite the critical aclaim and incredible games. Why? Simple, it wasn't 'more of the same', it wasn't what the gamers were feed with. Gamers didn't bother to try. Now, tell me capitalism doesn't have problems with innovation?
Back in the days, gamers would try new things, gamers were really all-around gamers. Today, we have gamers who 'camp' genre, who only buy type A games, like FPS, RTS, etc. They won't even bother to try other games, and won't give them a chance if they do try them.
So, the problem is as much with the gamers than the developers than the publishers.
Here's a great example of a use for XML-based language. I don't say it's better, I don't say it's anything new, it just helps in many ways making everything more standard.
Company A wants to exchange data(ie order forms) with Company B. (Amazon and CDNow for a lack of better example).
Now, if they used a proprietary format, it's all good, they make the specs together, then each implents it.
Then, Company C wants to be included in the exchange too. They send the specs of the file format and Company C implements it.
And so on. It could introduce many bugs since they don't have the same implementation details, if A and B want to add a field, but not C, C will still have to change it's implementation, unless the format allows additional field without breaking compatibilities with previous version of the file format.
However, if they used a standard format, whether or not it's XML-based, they would only have to take a reference implementation to parse the data, and thus will probably have much less differences, bugs and security issues.
XML is just a nice way to make a standard, it always parses the same way, and don't care when you add new fields, you must really change the whole language to break compatibilies with previous versions.
XML is just that, a nice standard way of doing standard language for information exchange. You could do it in CVS for example, but it's hardly flexible like XML. You can create proprietary formats, but it will take more time, and each companies are likely to have to build the implementations themselves. With XML-based language, it's very easy to do a reference implementation since XML always parses the same way and is very flexible.
Quantum encryption only makes the key exchange totally secure. It still uses a One Time Pad with a key as long as the message, BUT, it allows totally secure key exchange.
Somone mention that if your message is eavesdrop, it will be altered... but that wouldn't work, since the eavesdropper would know parts of the message itself. So, Quantum Encryption is a way to send a Key. If the key is intercepted, they are ways to know how much eavesdropping there was, and if there was too much, just send a new key until no one eavesdrop.
A spy can only prevent you from communicating, he cannot get any information from you, making it totally secure. It just get around the key distribution problems of the classical one time pad.
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Maybe counting/(add/sub) arithmetics might be 'universal', but as soon as you enter multiplications and divisions it starts showing problems. How do you multiply 3 apples with 2 apples? Oh yeah, to be precise, it's multiply 3 apples with the number 2(or else you have apples ** 2). But what is "number 2"? It's not a real thing. Then simple comparisons with things is much less direct now. We *define* multiplication as a way of simplifying repetitive additions (3+3+3+3 = 4*3), but when looking at it this way, it's not obvious than another race would do the same thing, or even think about the concept, especially if they have a system of 'numerals' that aren't suited for this(ever did multiplication/division in Roman or Egyptian numerals?? Try it, you'll understand. With those numerals, no one would have thought about multiplication or divisions).
Then you need to understand the concept of 0, which is central to our mathematics. Even in the roman language, I believe the word 'nothing' was based on the word 'something', because no one was able to think about nothing back in those days(... are we now more apt to do it? Ask someone in philosophy =). Then the Arabs(well, Indians if you want to be exact IIRC) changed this.
Then, for more complicated mathematics, you start having lots and lots of Axioms. An Axiom isn't TRUE or FALSE, it's just an Axiom. If you agree with the Axiom, then that's great. However, no universal concepts precludes you from not agreeing to an Axiom, and if you do you change a LOT of things, but it doesn't mean it's wrong.
For example, X ** 0 = 1. Or a division by 0 is impossible. Why? No reason, those are axioms, so you have to agree that it's that if you want to do lots of classical mathematics. You can 'Argue' axioms, but it's just that, arguying, you cannot prove without a single doubt an Axiom(beause then it's not an Axiom =)
Another example, in logic this time, is P = NOT(NOT(P)) and NOT(NOT(P)) = P. However, you could disagree with the second one and agree with the first and then(in additions to new and/or modified Axioms) you'd end up with a NEW logical system, vastly different from the classical logic: it's called Intuitionist Logic and isn't less valid than Classical Logic, just different.
One thing proven in one of the system might not be provable, or even could be false, in the other system.
This just is a small glimpse of why Math is certainly not universal. Simple counting(add/sub) MIGHT be universal, but I do believe it stops there if it does start there(you'd have to enter philosophical debates over this).
Yeah, but if the LOTR was written in Finnish and Gandalf was named "Mikko Keskinarkaus" and Frodo "Arttu Leppaluoto"(Apologies to Finnish, I took some random names I found), you would have probably read the English translation/equivalent of the names, for example. In your case, LOTR is a bad analogy because the book translators DID translate the names to other languages(at least to french, Baggins=>Sacquet for example, I dunno about other languages).
It's not always black and white. I mean, if a movie has english, japanese and german characters with respective names, you won't change their names. However, since all characters have japanese names in this case, and most of it is strictly japanese, it can be argued that name should or shouldn't be 'americanized'.
I personally would like them to keep japanese names(I hate names translations), but I can see why they would change them to be more american. You must understand that it's not going to be a japanese movie dubbed in english. It's most likely going to be an american movie, made for an american audience.
Anyway, I'm not saying it's going to be good... =)
(Anime Fan 1): Damn this sucks. I mean, they gave them American names for god's sake!
(Anime Fan 2): Yeah... but wasn't some of the character not even japanese? German, etc.?
(Anime Fan 1): So? What's the point?
(Anime Fan 2): Nothing, just my brain trying to think a bit, it's ok now. Anyway, I'll only watch the movie if the character's names stay in japanese.
(Anime Fan 1): Yeah. And if they shoot it in japanese only...
(Anime Fan 2): Subbed. Oh yeah, and count me out if they do not follow the serie to the letter, all XYZ episodes and fit them in 2 hours without anything missing or added.
(Anime Fan 1): Oh! Oh! And it must be all anime, I mean, Live Action will just suck you know? Will lose all the exagerated proportions and all.
(Anime Fan 2): Yeah... Hey, lets just go watch the serie again.
(Anime Fan 1): Ok.
Stay Away from ZoneAlarm. I'm serious. It causes more headaches than anything, have some bugs when unistalling, is generally not very good at doing it's job and takes stupid decisions if you don't configure it correctly from the get-go. It also is the worst UI i've seen.
The best one, in my previous experience as an ISP tech support, is Tiny Personal Firewall. I'm not sure it has a free version(I think it has one, but it's an older build), but it's about 50$ IIRC for the full version. Sygate is also nice.
We're not 100% sure it was a development computer. If they installed lots of keyloggers and such on many computers, instead of taking the code right away, it's probable that there was no code on the compromised computer. So, with the keyloggers and remote apps they got access to the LAN or private network and then were able to find the dev computers from there.
Still, like I said, they should have known better, patching softwares, isolate the dev computers better, close/monitor the network at the first sign of 'weirdness with emails' and such.
It really comes back to: "Are you paranoid or not? Even if you aren't, it doesn't mean they aren't after you." All in all, better be safe than sorry,but I'd imagine 80% of the people are going to be sorry one day or another, as they'll feel it takes too much time to be safe most of the time.
He wasn't that stupid. The email used a old buffer overflow bug in the preview pane of Outlook to install the program, Gabe just had to click(not even open) the email for it to install the trojan.
However, it's mind-bending that their Outlook weren't patched(it's a very old exploit) and that he uses the preview pane in Outlook, on his work related computer. I know that they are backed by Microsoft, and thus probably gets all the MS toys, but they still forgot to patch them.
A shame. Still, a custom written trojan made against Valve to target their system and get the code/data of the game isn't something you see everyday. Either this kind of thing doesn't happen often, or it happens often but it's never detected(or acknowledged). Think industrial espionnage. Either way, it's not an easy to spot/cure, not antivirus/firewall can detect it effectivly if it's custom written against you. They probably probed Valve to check what exploits would or wouldn't work, so it's not as easy as to say: they should have patched, because the hacker would probably have tried another way and with a little determination, would have still compromised their systems enough to get some data.
Were you watching the same Firefly as I did? With 9 evolving characters, with betrayals, redemptions, tensions and disagrements between characters, high and lows in the morale of the crew, personalities that got reveled layers by layers. Incredibly witty humour(Whedon at its best, IMHO), engaging situations and a dark undertone. There no goody-goody characters, no good vs evil plot, just man vs itself, a step above Angel in that direction.
There was no carbon-copy characters, even despite their titles(captain, doctor, engineer, pilot, mercenary,etc.), they had each their own will, some characters were really mysterious(the Preacher), some changed a bit in the short span of time, some grew and matured. It was a character driven series, and not a plot, setting or situational series like Buffy or Angel or countless of shows on tv. It was about the crew and there future. There was no hero, not evil to get rid of, only themselves.
So, I really don't know what serie you watched. I agree the first 2 episodes were the best, but they were still great, Mal kicking the bounty hunter in the ship's engine was so unexpected at the end of the first episode, Whedon at its best I said.
Compared to drunk, angry and depressive people that beats their wives and drives when drunk? I dunno, but I'd like meeting a pothead better than a drunk in a dark alley, what about you?
Not that I'm for legalization of pot or anything, but the point is why should alchool be legal and not marijuana as a purely logical argument?
What I meant is that in Quantum Computing, with only the U and XOR gate, you can build all the needed gates, which mean that you only need 2 essential gates instead of about 5-6 in classical science(AND, NOT, OR, XOR, etc.). So quantum gates are a LOT simplier than classical gates... well, it still depends how you look at it =)
Just to educate the masses further, a quantum CNOT(controlled NOT)/XOR gate is not equivalent to a classical XOR gate. A CNOT gate includes a control bit, and retain the information of this bit at the end of the gate.
What is fun in Quantum Computing is that you do not need a lot of basic gates(AND, OR, XOR, NOT, etc.), you only need a small number of basic gates to make up the Universal gate.
Furthermore, ALL the elementary gates in QC are reversible!! Unlike classical gates, like XOR, the quantum CNOT, for example, is fully reversible
That's exactly what is happening with my dad. 15+ years of experience in databases, analysis and programming, but he's been unemployed for nearly 2 years. Every interview he goes to has about 5 to 20 people of about equal skills looking for the job. The IT industry is a harsh place right now.
Saying that it doesn't cost money to people because it's corporations that pays the bill is pretty stupid of your part.
First, fixing the page is probably the least important factor to consider.
Since it's kind of a 'contest', who defaces the most websites, how much can you bet that a large % of them will be medium to small sites? Most will also be e-commerce related sites, since their security is often compromised by badly written e-commerce software.
Now, take the normal MomAndPops.com, which sells apple pies. Client comes to the site expecting to buy apple pie and then find out that the site become a Hacker Advertisement site of some sort, or even worst, says that Apple Pie causes cancer. What will they say? "I'll come back later when the website is restored"? I don't think so. Most probably: "Shit, they stopped selling apple pie because it gives cancer!". It's sad, but a lot of people are gullible.
So, the real problem is loss of sales because of it, and/or traffic/readership, and/or reputation or anything the website is based on. The longer the site remains defaced, the more the website loses. This is the real killer, especially for small to medium websites/e-commerce, and most of these aren't run by evil megacorporations.
And your attitude of saying it's not that big of a deal because the corporation has enough money to fix it, or won't pay the guy in overtime, is not very wise. Sure, most of them exagerates the 'cost' of hackers and such, but it doesn't mean it isn't substancial, or that it just costs a simple fix of the website.
Frankly, I don't care much anyway, I'm posting here to give info and such, not to get Karma. At first I wanted to repost it to get it above the default filter, but after I reposted it I realized most mods should browse at -1 anyway, so it was pretty much stupid to repost it, my apologies.
I was just surprised to see that I wasn't logged in, hehe, stupid adaware that deletes cookies.
Posted this as AC previously as an error. Sorry.
I don't think you understand Microsoft's tactic. They ALWAYS did the same thing:
1) Start with something free or an upgrade.
2) Incrementally and slowly add more and more restrictive claims. Auto-update, DRM, etc.
3) If the people start complaining too much, roll-back to previous claims, which isn't much better.
4) Wait for a while.
5) Go to 2.
This has been MS tactics for as long as I can remember. So, I don't think we should claim victory right now.
Like I said, there are lots of things to consider. For my part, I think meeting new people in game and making friends and allies is very fun and rewarding. When I played in the AC1 beta, I made lots of friends, teachers in magic, and such, it was more fun than any other game(at that time EQ and UO) just because of the community. Of course, that was in the beta...
The goal is really to strike a balance between a lot of factor and GIVE incentives and things to do for every character type. Loners would have a LOT opf things to do, just not going one-on-one against big bad monsters. He could be a really cool rangers, knowing the area by heart, but rarely fighting monster, and he's the guy you go to if you need to pass thru the forest unhindered or something.
With a 'reputation' system, where you can 'rate' people, either in-game or out-game, it would be cool. You get to a city, and look around and hear that Mister X is the best ranger there is around here and can easely get you from point A to point B unhindered... for a price =) There must be ways to also get XP other than just killing monsters.
Anyway... I'll leave that to the company that will really try to do a PD game. Done right, it migth be really cool. Done wrong it might be the worst MMORPG ever. It won't be easy.
Also, since the market is so cluttered, maybe a mass-market appeal isn't a good idea? Maybe that a niche, or smaller demographic would be better? Check AC2, a LOT of people are leaving in flocks... wouldn't it be better to have an average but stable group of people?
Why? I mean, there as SOOO much MMORPG that the market is pretty crowded and getting shares of it is starting to be pretty hard. Now, to take those shares, you can make a risky MMORPG with PD and maybe, just maybe, this will lead to a better game and maybe a bigger share than if you just had done a normal MMORPG with some 'new' features. Or it might fail. Risky business is, well, risky, but usually the reward is much greater, especially with stiff competition.
Now, in a PD game, you MUST remove all(or a vast majority of) 'unfair' deaths, like disconnects, lags, glitches, etc. There are many ways you can handle this, one, maybe not the best, would be to have 3 state: alive, incapacitated and dead. When you get under 0 HP, you are incapacitated., loosing some XP or even permanent HP or such. When in that state, monsters will switch to another target(thus not really killing you), and you cannot use any 'physical' skills and such, only mental ones, but with great difficulties. If you are in a group, the rest of the team will probably kill the monster and heal you. If you were alone(BAD idea in a PD game), what happens depends on the monster. Some might just let you rot there until someone finds you or you slowly heal. Or, he might bring you to his camp to eat, which gives rescuing opportunities, and ways for you to escape. Others, more powerful and dangerous monsters might just eat you whole or shred you to pieces. However, those would be rare, and you would know that beforehand, so it's very risky to try to bring down a dragon or such, especially alone. With good monster AI, you could have opportunities to retreat and bring the incapacitated characters with you, go back to town, heal up and try to go back better prepared.
Furthermore, even creatures that can really kill you, takes time to 'eat you', and are vulnerable when doing so, so it gives you even more chances of being rescued or even 'waking up'. The same holds true for PvP, as someone that incapacitate you have a CHOICE of leaving you there, rotting away, or really killing you. Permanently killing you would have deep consequences (alignment/humanity shift, killer flags, big bounties on you) and takes some time, and during this time, you would be vulnerable to attacks, and thus, it's a double edged sword, you could be permanently killed while trying to do the same to someone else. If you play Vampire the Masquerade, think of it as a kind of Torpor/Incapacitated mix and Final Death, with diablerie the only way to put someone in Final Death.
The possibilities are endless, and this is just a somewhat half-assed idea, but even that could bring a breath of fresh air to MMORPG.
That's why you must build a system to eliminate death by lags and glitches and such, what I call "unfair" death.
/. one =). The more experience you gain, or the more heroic you are, or the more you follow a belief or alignment or something like that, the more Karma you gain. If one day you do good, the other you do evil, then good, then evil... you won't have much Karma.
A bit deeper in the thread I've posted a link to a discussion on BluesNews about MEO and more specifically PD. Go check it out.
About things like "almost died" and such, which are really roleplay elements more than 'game mechanics', maybe adding something like the Karma system in Shadowrun(and not the
Then, you could do 'miracles' like cheating death or doing an heroic feat by 'spending' Karma. In roleplay terms, it might be luck, divine intervention, etc.
I do believe that every difficulty and problems of PD can be solved by a clever idea like that, that's why I think we're ready for PD.
Exactly. In fact, a good PD system will nearly eliminate PKillers and that sort of people, and strengthen the community and interaction between players, much more than a conventional game could.
Like I said before, the idea is to solve the problems of PD(death by lags and glitches for example) and not just whine about them, but actually try to solve them. It's easy to say PD won't work because of X or Y, but it's harder and more rewarding, I think, to try to actually solve those problems. These new ideas might revitalize the MMORPG market, EVEN if the game fails, the ideas and new features because of PD might be really useful even for other games.
Check a discussion I'm having on BluesNews about PD, posts #11 and up.
MEO Discussion on BluesNews
That's why I think the perfect MMORPG in Middle Earth would be during the second age, or at least long before the LoTR. Times of conflicts between all races, epic wars, easterlings invasions, etc. It's a much better backdrop than the Ring quest and it's backdrop.
You are one of the many who do not think really about a PD system as a new beast completely. A PD game cannot just be EverQuest with PD added just like that. Everything, the whole game - economics, character advancement, features, etc. - everything must be built from the ground up to be Perma-Death. It's not as simple as adding PD or creating a PD server, as this will just fail and won't be useful at all. There is a real challenge of doing a PD game, and much reward I think.
However, for that, people must lose they preconceived ideas about permanent-death. I think I'll start the PDAA (PD Awareness Association). =)
I do believe that the market is now ready for a Permanent-Death MMORPG. I mean, the market is so full of similar games that a trully different and risky feature such as this might be what's needed to get a good share of the market.
Sure, making a PD game requires planning it from the start, making every features in a way that PD is possible for everyone to ENJOY. There are lot of problems to solve, and those are solvable on paper, and probably in practice. I just wish one publisher had the balls to really do it.
I wouldn't bet that Turbine will keep the PD, I'm sure they won't. This sucks. I just wish there were still risky companies around like Looking Glass were. Ion Storm isn't bad with Deus Ex and now the sequel, although they used Looking Glass' legacy to build Deus Ex on... While you can be successful and make great games without being overly original and risky(Blizzard), we still need risky ventures to revolutionize and advance toward new and greener pastures.
Oh well, don't mind me, the old skeptic gamer, but I'm sure the new middle earth will just be a 'standard' MMORPG with some new and unrisky features and the same old gameplay, with some tweak here and there, and more importantly, the Tolkien world! Wow, quite a change of setting...
Please, someone, bring Permanent Death and more risky idea to the world of MMORPG and then, maybe, maybe I'll actually play one.
defeat Nazism, Communism, and [hopefully] Terrorism.
And destroyed and ravaged europe and countless of countries, atomic bombs obliterating cities full of innoncent civilians, destroyed(...) our all-time ennemies the vietcongs, let a lots of good soldiers dies, etc.
War is NEVER one sided. War itself is bad for everyone, every side, despite what a lot of people says. It's not because you aren't affected directly that it is 'good'. I hope the casulaties will be kept to a minimum and the war will end quickly. That's all we can hope for at this point.
While I am happy that Canada didn't sent any troops, I wish good luck to all the coalition soldiers out there.
No they don't. Gamers only know about what they are given to play with, unfortunately. Gamers can only find ways of IMPROVING actual games, they know nothing about game design. When I say gamers, it means 'most gamers', including the casual gamers and deer hunter fans.
Gamers play game A, a FPS for example. He'll find a list of hundreds of items to make game A better if he's a creative gamers that cares, otherwise he won't even think about it. However, these are just additions and changes to a specific game, or 'genre'. Gamers are blinded by the games they play, the games they are given, simple. Gamers usually aren't creative enough to think about a new and innovation game. That's why good game designers exists. If people like Sid Meiers and Miyamoto never existed, and only gamers would make games, the industry would be in a lot worst condition.
This is the problem with the industry. They can only make 'game A, which is game B with better X, Y and Z.' Good designers are able to come up with new a fresh ideas. Not revolutionary or anything, but fresh and new. However, since gamers are blinded by what they play, and only want to improve the games they play, these games either sells poorly, or are smash hits. No in-between. Gamers either give it a chance and see how great it is, or they don't bother and miss on an incredible game.
Great designers are few and far between. Anyone can think about how to make product A better, whether or not it's a game. However, to come with the idea of product A, it doesn't take a consumer/gamer, it takes a great mind(or many great minds).
Consumers, which gamers are, simply don't know what they want. They only know how to improve what they are given.
That's why focus groups and surveys and such are just the wrong way to do it. However, since making something people 'want' makes money, that's what they do, simple. That's why you get cars like the PT Cruisers that is just a piece of crap, but hey, it's popular because that's what drivers wants. Same with SUV. You could extend this problem to Democracy as a whole, but I won't even try to go near there, hehe.
Designers should make a game for THEMSELVES, not for the gamers.
Look at Blizzard. They make games for the gamers. Sure, they are very polished and incredibly detailed games, but they are just more of the same. However, since they make games for the gamers, they make tons of money. I love blizzard games, but you can't say they are innovative or anything, just more of the same, but MUCH better.
Look back at Looking Glass. They really created innovative games, for themselves and not the gamers at all. System Shock 1, Thief, Terra Nova, and some more. They created some new 'genres' themselves. The company failed, despite the critical aclaim and incredible games. Why? Simple, it wasn't 'more of the same', it wasn't what the gamers were feed with. Gamers didn't bother to try. Now, tell me capitalism doesn't have problems with innovation?
Back in the days, gamers would try new things, gamers were really all-around gamers. Today, we have gamers who 'camp' genre, who only buy type A games, like FPS, RTS, etc. They won't even bother to try other games, and won't give them a chance if they do try them.
So, the problem is as much with the gamers than the developers than the publishers.
Here's a great example of a use for XML-based language. I don't say it's better, I don't say it's anything new, it just helps in many ways making everything more standard.
Company A wants to exchange data(ie order forms) with Company B. (Amazon and CDNow for a lack of better example).
Now, if they used a proprietary format, it's all good, they make the specs together, then each implents it.
Then, Company C wants to be included in the exchange too. They send the specs of the file format and Company C implements it.
And so on. It could introduce many bugs since they don't have the same implementation details, if A and B want to add a field, but not C, C will still have to change it's implementation, unless the format allows additional field without breaking compatibilities with previous version of the file format.
However, if they used a standard format, whether or not it's XML-based, they would only have to take a reference implementation to parse the data, and thus will probably have much less differences, bugs and security issues.
XML is just a nice way to make a standard, it always parses the same way, and don't care when you add new fields, you must really change the whole language to break compatibilies with previous versions.
XML is just that, a nice standard way of doing standard language for information exchange. You could do it in CVS for example, but it's hardly flexible like XML. You can create proprietary formats, but it will take more time, and each companies are likely to have to build the implementations themselves. With XML-based language, it's very easy to do a reference implementation since XML always parses the same way and is very flexible.
Hope that helps.
Quantum encryption only makes the key exchange totally secure. It still uses a One Time Pad with a key as long as the message, BUT, it allows totally secure key exchange.
Somone mention that if your message is eavesdrop, it will be altered... but that wouldn't work, since the eavesdropper would know parts of the message itself. So, Quantum Encryption is a way to send a Key. If the key is intercepted, they are ways to know how much eavesdropping there was, and if there was too much, just send a new key until no one eavesdrop.
A spy can only prevent you from communicating, he cannot get any information from you, making it totally secure. It just get around the key distribution problems of the classical one time pad.